Surviving Student Loans
The student loan juggernaut, before it became a national scandal, was a way of life for many middle-class high school students like myself. Better known as a “necessary evil,” than a reason to be embarrassed or worried.
But you can’t change the past, so here is advice for students past and present — whether you’re about to make the leap and want a glimpse of your future or you are still recovering from the fall.
Prep for Success
Student loans do not equal a free education, even if it seems like it at the time you sign on the dotted line. Put the math in terms you can accept: According to its 2012-2013 rates, one year at Princeton is like buying 109 iPads and paying for them for the next 30 years. Four years at Penn State is the same as buying a 1,867-year subscription to Forbes magazine. Talk about a legacy.
Many high schoolers just don’t think about what student loan debt means (not to discredit those who do, of course). But there’s a fine line between heading off to college because it’s what will benefit you the most and just doing what all of your classmates and peers are doing.
And remember: People will actually pay you to go to school. In the very rare case, a company you work for will foot the bill in exchange for years of your service. In other circumstances, nonprofits have money they need to get off their hands. They want to give it to you. You just have to prove that you aren’t a scammer and that you deserve it by responding to any and every essay scholarship you can find.
Minimizing Damage While Attending
It seems like a common phenomenon for today’s college student to see attending college as a social outlet and not the investment in one’s future it really is. Newsflash: College ends. Friends move out of town, and the money stops coming in unless you get a competitive job.
By all means make the most of the social aspects of college, because networking is valuable too, but don’t over-network at the expense (literally) of your future financial happiness. Move off-campus and get your hands on some sub-$500 rent. Pick up an hourly job at Blockbusters (oh wait, they’re closed) or a super-sketchy gas station (oh wait, I regret that) and put that money not towards the bar tab, but towards your groceries. Then cook and pre-game at home to keep restaurant and alcohol costs down.
The very last thing you should be doing is rounding up when you calculate your expenses and using the “leftovers” as padding. Student loans don’t exist to make your life easier, they exist to help you get an education. Don’t take advantage because even if you skimp you’ll be paying for a long time.
Most importantly, major in something that will make money and leave your passions for your minor.
You can read Hemingway and ponder 1700s French philosophy on your commute home from a high-paying corporate gig. You can even save for a few years while working there and then quit to do what you want while you pay your own way. The alternative is having some really cool ideas and then trying to make it in the freelancing world right out of college. The alternative isn’t that great.
Consolidating and Paying Off
Maybe all of this information comes too late. Well, never fear, the US government is here.
If you have loans spread among different banks and all of the loans are in your name, you may be eligible to consolidate those loans into one big loan (and one big payment) by visiting Direct Consolidation Loan, a government website.
You’ll also have the option of choosing an Income-Based Repayment plan if you aren’t making very much, or even getting your loans forgiven after a period of time for working in a public service industry (check the website for more details).
For a more in-depth look at consolidating your student loan debt, look no further than the GRS archives.
Stay Motivated
Loans can be paid, and the clutches of debt can be escaped. Use the resources here at Get Rich Slowly to manage your income — no matter how much or how little there is of it — to get out of debt. Even student loans, once considered “good debt,” are now an uncomfortable mark on your credit report… and more importantly, on your standard of living.
But make sure you’re informed, not afraid, and if you regret the choices you made, you can start saving for your kids early. After all, that’s the kind of legacy you want to leave.
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There are 102 comments to "Surviving Student Loans".
You can’t consolidate private loans (Sallie Mae, banks as mentioned in the post, etc.) into a federal consolidation loan. Consolidating post-2006 federal loans doesn’t make much sense anymore either, because as of 2006 all federal loans come with fixed interest rates. The primary benefit to consolidation before 2006 was locking in a lower, fixed rate, and you can’t do that anymore (the consolidation calculator averages the interest rates of your fixed-rate loans).
Re: “Most importantly, major in something that will make money and leave your passions for your minor.”: I highly recommend “How Art History Majors Power the US Economy”:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-06/postrel-how-art-history-majors-power-the-u-s-.html
Thank you for your comment!
The article you mention brings up a great point, that “the commentators excoriating today’s students for studying the wrong subjects are pursuing certainty where none exists,” in reference to this idea that majoring in science or business will guarantee success.
A successful person will be successful in any major, I am sure, even in (or especially in) the Arts and Humanities. But I am curious about the percentage of students who major in English “to write” but might not be better off in something like Communications or Psychology.
I do apologize for not being specific about the loans – I was referring to amounts spread across different types of loans such as Subsidized Federal Stafford Loans and Direct Subsidized loans, etc, and so should have said amounts spread among different loans, not among different banks.
It depends on what you mean by “write”. I don’t think it’s realistic to graduate and expect to free lance, launch a full time blog or write a novel. However, I know many successful writers who work in communications, technical writing, marketing writing, grant writing, etc. Writing can be quite lucrative in some industries like high tech.
If a person is only going to study literature and not get any experience (like publishing work or volunteering with the school paper), then a lit degree isn’t going to be that useful. However, studying practical aspects of writing like communications, media, stylistics, genre, and discourse analysis actually gives you skills for a career.
There are so many free, high quality courses that folks can take now, IF they have to take student loans for college (and I think more could do it without getting strapped if they planned better), they can take free courses online to satisfy their need for just knowledge. It is actually a wonderful time to be a student. My husband and I signed up for a history course on http://www.coursera.org and cannot wait to start it!
So if you MUST pay, and especially if you MUST take out some student loans, use those for the courses you MUST take in order to gain a certification or degree in something you are more likely to be able to actually get a job when you are done.
Thank you for the link; that is an excellent article.
“You can read Hemingway and ponder 1700s French philosophy on your commute home from a high-paying corporate gig.”
Your point here is certainly well taken, but I also cringe a little bit when we as a culture devalue the skills that humanities majors bring to the table.
The stress on practical degrees goes hand in hand with the hyper-professionalization of nearly everything. NPR just had a piece today on this very thing – “Why It’s Illegal To Braid Hair Without A License”.
Whatever happened to learning on the job? I write professional biographies, and one thing that strikes me is how many of the older generations of successful professionals often “only” have a B.A. And this B.A. is usually in anything from psychology to history. Some just have “some college” or even a high school diploma. I notice the younger professionals I detail have many, many degrees and lots of certifications.
This, of course, increases the burden of student loans as well, which is directly to your point.
But back to MY original point – reading and writing about literature teach you how to think. Studying history provides a valuable perspective on the present. These are not useless classes, nor should they just be viewed as past-times on your way to “real” work or things that only the elite should explore. That would be a shame if only those with trust funds majored in these things.
And the reality is that reading literature on the subway doesn’t provide you the rigor of a semester of study guided by a teacher. They are not equivalent, and I would hate for no one to explore the canon or dedicate four years of their life to such matters. The humanities are important, and I wish corporations and HR departments would recognize the potential value of that English major whose resume is put at the bottom of the proverbial pile.
An aside – can we get back the ability to edit our comments? For a perfectionist like me, it is painful to hit submit, knowing I might have missed an error I can’t fix.
I could not agree more.
Unfortunately, I think my suggestion speaks to my more cynical world view at the moment. And it is something of a catch-22 — the folks who would read Hemingway and ponder French philosophy on their way home are exactly the folks who should be majoring in English, etc, because they are proving themselves interested and dedicated (in a weird kind of back —to-the-future way).
But it’s the students who are driven to the Arts and Humanities like that who deserve (and benefit) to be there. Everyone else is wasting (and building up) student loans!
And again, I completely agree that corporations and HR often overlook what could be the most valuable additions to their team. And I think that might be the heart of my cynicism — majoring in the Arts and Humanities is a large risk, even a gamble, with heavy stakes.
Of course, in a given economy, any investment in education is a gamble. But I’d say the odds are a little more in favor of highly technical (and valued) majors.
In hindsight, I apologize for all of my parenthetical asides!
I’m going to be a little contrarian. I have a master’s degree in history and I don’t consider that the pursuit of that degree gave me any workplace “skills” at all, beyond a freakish typing speed.
Reading and writing and research are necessary skills in business. However, reading and writing and research are not things you can only learn from studying the liberal arts.
Having a college degree helped me get my first job in a law office – they would not have hired anyone with a high-school diploma. But *every* skill I needed to learn to succeed in that job (and every job that followed), I acquired on the job.
If I had a bachelor’s degree in chemistry instead of in history, I could have taken the on-the-job skills I learned and passed the patent bar, to be making now 2 to 3 times as much as I do as a legal assistant with a master’s degree.
Had I received more substantive counseling (heck, ANY counseling) in high school and college, I might have come much earlier to the conclusion that I can read history on my own time. An education that I was paying would have been better employed learning things I couldn’t learn by myself.
I do think that the humanities are important, but most employers do not look highly upon those majors. I think that students should major in something practical (engineering, science, business, economics) and major/minor in another field of interest (philosophy, religion, English, etc).
I agree 110%!! While I enjoy and easily pass any english or writing class I take, and while I deeply enjoy history, what good is a degree in that going to do for me? It seems like too many people have degrees in subjects that interest them, and while I guess that’s not a bad thing, to me, a mom who stopped school to raise the little ones, and plan to go back, I am inclined to agree, I can read and study what I enjoy on my own time, but need to get a degree in something that is useful, and is what employeres want. Business, or administration is what I will be looking at.
You make some good points. I wish there was a high school class that taught about college loans, the value of them, the value of using them, and value of paying them back.
I’d also like to see scholarships and grants as part of that class. Three of my daughters have scholarships that are currently paying or have paid for almost all of their graduate studies. Plus, some of their undergrad was also included.
School loans, depending on how much is owed, can determine the career choices for students. I don’t think they realize that when they start.
But, I totally disagree with this, “Most importantly, major in something that will make money and leave your passions for your minor.”
When my oldest daughter was studying for undergrad in history, my brother asked, “What the hell is she going to do with that? How will she make any money?”
Well, after she completed her Master’s program, she’s doing just fine, financially and in every other way.
If someone has to spend at least 8 hours a day doing something, they better be doing it with passion.
Great point about a class for high schoolers about how to pay for college. I didn’t get any guidance from our school’s guidance counselor beyond how to fill out the FIFA form. It would have been useful to have someone talk about where and how to find scholarships and how to select a school and finance my post-secondary education.
As advice on affording the cost of college goes, this article is pretty sparse. 🙁
You are very correct — my goal here was to provide some insight in how to survive the whole experience in good shape, not necessarily pay for it.
For a better look at paying for the whole shebang, check out Chase Miller’s story here: https://www.getrichslowly.org/paying-for-college-a-high-school-students-quest-to-stay-debt-free/
Thank you for your comment!
Nice, direct writing style.
I understand why people steer students toward more practical majors, especially given the price of an education.
However, that doesn’t always work: has anyone spoken to a newly graduate, jobless law student lately? Or the problem accountants are having finding jobs? Over saturation of candidates flooding a job market can and does happen.
What students need to think about are their expectations. There’s nothing wrong with majoring in English so long as you realize you may not have a job in that exact field after college. Not everyone can be an English teacher and the higher the English degree, the more debt and less job opportunities there are. But, if a student majors in English, but also amasses other skills, like web design or even good old office experience, having a solid skill like writing or editing can put them heads and shoulders above their fellow applicants. I have 3 degrees in the Humanities, earned at traditional colleges, both private and public, with a minimal amount of debt, which has been paid off. Between my education and variety of job experiences (publishing, finance, teaching, administration) I often stand out as a candidate and have more than once landed a job simply because I can write well. Students need to be practical when thinking PAST college. It’s okay to major in the Humanities, as long as they realize that they’ll need to be creative about gaining other skills along the way and finding a profession afterward. The world still needs philosophers, artists, writers and musicians, even if they aren’t valued in traditional currency.
I also think students need to think harder about why they are going to college. Sending a kid off to a pricey, four year college simply because of some vague notion that it’s something one must do, is not wise. College is not and should not be for everyone. Some of the savviest students I met during my undergrad years were a bit older than me. They had delayed college and worked for a few years. These students were more focused, happier to be in college, more driven and, generally speaking, took advantage of every opportunity at their disposal. College is important, but it’s not the only path and it’s not one to be taken lightly.
I agree. I think that a lot of people enter college with a path in mind and then try to “backwards design” how to get that life that they want. When, like you said, you should start with what you know, what you love, and what you want to do, and build a path from there. Building that skill set (and that unique story) is what makes a person attractive to a hiring committee.
My dad always used to say, “You can do whatever you want as long as you are the best.” If you don’t want to work that hard, you have to be more practical. A college degree in any major proves that you are a hard worker and you have follow thru. I think the main problem is that college grads have too high of expectations for their first job, even with a college degree you still have to prove yourself in the job market.
Great point!
Do you think it’s easier to be “great” in some majors and harder to stand out in others?
Amanda’s dad makes a pretty good point, but I’d like to add that being smart about what you choose to do can go a long way. You might have to be the very best Art History major to find a lucrative career in that field, but even mediocre results in an Electrical Engineering program can lead to solid employment prospects.
College can be all about getting that first job, after that the opportunities are created based on your accomplishments, timing and a little luck.
Yes, most students do have pretty unrealistic ideas of their first jobs. When I was teaching an upper-division business writing class at a large state U five or six years ago, a lot of my students were complaining that they couldn’t get to class on time because it was “too early” (9:30 a.m. two days a week, I think). So I decided to have a talk about job expectations because they did realize that once they graduated (within a year) that they’d probably end up with a job where they had to be somewhere by 8 a.m. EVERY DAY, right? RIGHT?!
Turns out their salary expectations were just as out of whack. They mostly said they’d “settle for $65K/year” if they had to. I just wanted to laugh. Let me further contextualize this by saying that my particular business writing class was a requirement for students from a particular College on campus that was popular because none of its majors had a math requirement. Mind-boggling.
You mentioned Income Based Repayment if you don’t make much. I think that is a bit inaccurate; my wife and I combined make six figures and have combined 120k in Federal loans and participate in IBR. It is a great program that you can participate in at any level of income. If you don’t make much, you simply will not have to pay until you make more.
You’re absolutely right – I assume, based on the name, that the intention is for the minimized payment to be available for folks with a lower paycheck.
The official wording is that it’s an amount “intended to be affordable based on your income and family size,” but since that amount is left up to the user it’s fair game to use it to your advantage!
I can definitely see how having a reduced payment for a period of time would help one reach personal financial goals.
While IBR is not limited to low-income people, it is limited to people with a partial financial hardship. Basically, the payment under IBR has to be less than the payment would be on the standard 10-year repayment plan. This makes it so people with large incomes still qualify if they have a lot of loans, but also so middle income people may not qualify if their loan balance is not high enough. I’m a big fan of IBR and plan to use it all the way to public service loan forgiveness, but it’s important to remember that the amount of loans someone has is just as important as income and family size in determining eligibility.
Thanks for the information. I especially liked your suggestions here: “Move off-campus and get your hands on some sub-$500 rent. Pick up an hourly job at Blockbusters (oh wait, they’re closed) or a super-sketchy gas station (oh wait, I regret that) and put that money not towards the bar tab, but towards your groceries. Then cook and pre-game at home to keep restaurant and alcohol costs down.”
When you’re living on borrowed money, I think it’s good advice to earn any money you can and live as cheaply as you can. Many college students enjoy a lot of luxuries that they really can’t afford.
As far as leaving your passions for your minor, I think this is an area in which students should strive for balance. It’s important for students to pursue a career about which they feel passionate. However they should also develop practical skills to be successful in that field, and in other fields if they don’t get their dream job right away.
Skimming this article, I had a hard time following it. There were lots of words on paper, but not a whole lot of content. “Get a job while in school” isn’t adding much to the conversation. As someone who has $85k in student loan debt coming out of school, the author’s advice didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know, and “hang on tight,” well, I don’t exactly need motivational words of wisdom.
JD, I like to see articles with a lot of substance on your site, and this article falls short.
Hey Dan, I’m sorry to hear that!
With this article, my intention was to provide a fresh perspective on the generational narrative we have for attending college.
Fortunately, I can promise my second article will be much more nitty-gritty with the details!
Nitty gritty would be a reasonably well researched article that talks about the average costs of college and housing, and what a student might expect to make with a part time minimum wage job while in school.
Set the stage for “this generation is different” and why it’s so much harder.
You don’t have to choose between a humanities and STEM major. If you pick your electives carefully you can do both! I did! 🙂
Being a recent college grad in this exact situation I take as much student loan related advice as I can get. Although there are some good points made in this article, it’s not the best article about the subject I’ve read and it certainly doesn’t give the best advice.
As a graduate from the Humanities and Social Science college at my school I’m a bit skeptical toward anyone who would tell someone to sacrifice their dreams for money. I worked in the business college for over two years as a student assistant and was convinced over and over again that when it came to me, business and its related areas of study were not for me. It took getting a job in corporate after graduating to really drive that point home which lead me to the conclusion that working without some sort of passion is no way to live.
Another piece of questionable advice is mentioning debt forgiveness. So many of these programs are disappearing and so many offer debt forgiveness in exchange of a certain amount of years of someone’s life (minimum usually five). Plus you have student taking own loads of debt to be a teacher or something thinking that they’d go work in some low-income area and get their debt forgiven and realize too late that they want to persue a different career choice.
The best advice in my opinion is advice that books like “Debt-Free U” give, which is “Don’t even bother in the first place.” There are other ways to pay for college without going into massive loads of debt. And I agree with statements above. There needs to be programs in high school that educate students about the financial side of paying for college. I know I went into college completely ignorant about money management and now that I know better I’m already one of the millions working desperately to pay back their student loans.
I think it depends on your personality. I know people who are perfectly happy working jobs they aren’t passionate about because their focus is elsewhere (family, hobbies, etc.) It doesn’t have to be a “dream job” for them to find satisfaction.
I also know people — myself included — whose passion aligns with their career. I find it incredibly draining to work a job that I’m not passionate about and don’t excel at. (Hence the reason I’m not an engineer!)
Different strokes for different folks, as they say.
It’s also worth mentioning that those programs (Teach for America, for example) are EXTREMELY competitive. In my day job I advise graduate students. One of my PhD students who left our program (totally the right choice for her, she was MISERABLE) applied for Teach for America. You’d think that someone with six years of graduate school and teaching experience would be a shoo-in, right? She didn’t get the job.
This article felt too short to me—I think it’s missing some “meat” so to speak.
Some other suggestions:
1. What about avoiding as much as you can in terms of loans? Sticking to city or state schools, for example, can often be cheaper—although I know that isn’t always true.
2. Do not assume what they offer you in loans is what you need.
3. People generally apply for scholarships and grants when they are getting ready to enter college but don’t forget to keep looking while you’re in college.
4. Aside from looking into jobs that will pay for your education, you can look into fields that offer loan forgiveness. (Certain teaching programs, certain health care programs, etc. offer loan forgiveness.)
I thought this advice from a couple of top economists was good: http://money.cnn.com/2012/06/11/pf/college/student-loan-value/index.htm
Basically to sum: you’re unlikely to get into trouble with low interest subsidized federal loans– those are capped, so you just can’t go into staggering amounts of debt. It’s the private loans that rack up the fees, because just like with mortgages, lenders want students to borrow more than they need because it’s good for them. (Which is really the same as thethriftyspendthrift’s #2.)
In my experience, applying for scholarships was a complete waste of time and energy, because schools counted it as income and simply deducted the dollar amount of the scholarships from the grant aid they would have given me. For example, one semester I was given a $10k grant from the school… the next semester, when I had won $3500 of scholarships, they deducted $3500 from the grant aid. So I left with exactly the same amount of out-of-pocket expense either way.
I was ecstatic when I won the scholarships, thinking I was reducing my personal bill… imagine my disappointment to find out that wasn’t the case.
I’m not saying it would work like that for everyone, but I imagine it might, since all financial aid forms ask you to declare scholarship info.
Also, I’m really wary about federal loans. Even though they now require you to go through an online questionnaire to make sure you understand what you’re signing, they are not very upfront about your repayment terms. For example, the myedaccount.com website will tell you what your interest rate is, but not how many more payments you have. There is no amortization schedule and the people that answer the 800 line have no idea what that is. I know my monthly payment amount but I do not understand how they are actually calculating the interest they are charging me, or how many payment I have left, and no one seems to know. Very sketchy.
The new myedaccount website they switched to last fall is AWFUL. We paid off my student loan at the end of last year just so I didn’t have to deal with the website anymore.
Isn’t that infuriating? The scholarship thing, I mean.
Why is that allowed? If students win a scholarship, shouldn’t they benefit from their hard work, rather than their school?
The same holds with savings; if you have money saved, the school just deducts it from your grant award. Our student aid system is byzantine and completely untransparent, more so, even, than used car dealerships. In a class of two hundred students, no one pays exactly the same tuition.
One practical point to keep in mind: the more expensive schools are more likely to give you a larger aid package. This is counter-intuitive, but the pricey, elite schools are often cheaper, unless you really have a lot of money.
Many students attend community college for the first two years, to save money, and I think this is an excellent idea. Although the quality might not be as good, there’s not much of a different, for the introductory classes, where you would likely be working with a TA in a large lecture class at a university.
One of the amazing things about my undergrad was that it split scholarship savings 50% (half to grants, half to loans or out of pocket). It really doesn’t make sense for schools to discourage getting scholarships by reducing grant aid 100%.
Whether or not this issue is important depends on how much your parents make and how generous the school is. Some schools don’t give any grant aid, and if your parents make a lot of money you won’t be eligible for any grant aid. But for the vast majority of people, it is a really important thing to check out before spending a lot of time on getting scholarship money.
Yeah, my daughter worked as a dorm counselor in her sophomore year. The compensation (room and 1/2 board) was worth about $10,000. They took over $8,000 off her grant for the year. Go figure. A lot of the RA’s at her school come from well-off families who don’t get aid.
My advice after having completed two bachelor’s degrees and put two kids through college is to plan at least a few years ahead so that you can paint yourself in the very worst possible financial light. That will lead to the best financial aid package. Eliminate as much debt as possible so that you can pay as many expenses as possible out of pocket. On the FAF, you will be penalized for income, scholarships, savings, retirement accounts, and many other assets. If all else fails, ask your parents to get a divorce or get one yourself (ok, maybe that’s going a little too far)!
I know someone who worked for his Dad’s company – made the minimum amount to be considered an independant (so he paid his own taxes teh two years prior to school and was not considered a dependant for his dad)
so when he applied for financial aid – it was all based just on him – not his parents
Seemed pretty shady to me then…
This is exactly the opposite of what I wanted out of college (then and in retrospect, even after several years of underemployment). If I wanted job training, I would have gotten a job or gone through some vocational program. I wanted to learn. So I did. (And managed to do so while acquiring a perfectly manageable amount of debt that I am about to pay off now, five years out, even on my pathetic little what-do-you-do-with-a-BA-in-English* salary.)
* actually psychology, but that’s not the song
It’s also important to live a self-imposed hardship life upon joining the workforce, to payoff debt quickly.
Enjoyed the article and will be sharing it with several friends who are in various stages of college.
I totally agree with leaving your passion for your minor. You can still get exposure to those excellent professors and can even afford follow on classes!
I agree with your last statement, that educating our own children is a legacy that we should be leaving behind. I am a product of such legacy as my two hard-working parents (one a teacher and the other a jack-of-all-trades) sacrificed so much for both myself and my sibling to attend 4-year in-state colleges (with grade and location stipulations of course). However, just because you may have no educational debt does not mean that a future spouse won’t!!
I agree with a fellow reader above that all students in the high school realm should be more informed and be REQUIRED to take some type of a Survival Finance course to help them outline their individual futures with their passions in mind, whether it be a humanities, vocational training, or otherwise. (By the way, electricians are highly skilled and paid individuals with vocational & on-the-job training without having gone to a 4-year college!) Perhaps the educational focus should not be “one must attend college to be successful” but rather, “what do you plan to do to survive and how will you contribute to society?”
I hope to leave a legacy through any of my children via education. One book to consider reading is Values-Based Financial Planning : The Art of Creating and Inspiring Financial Strategy (Bachrach).
Due to financial need and my academic accomplishments, I received a great deal of financial aid for my bachelor’s degree at Northwestern University. Otherwise I would never have been able to attend, as the annual tuition was equivalent to my parents’ combined annual income.
I had a work-study award and found a job working in a research lab in my major. I worked there all four years, including during most breaks and in the summers with the exception of the summer between freshman and sophomore year when I went home.
I also participated in paid psych experiments to earn “extra” money.
It was tough. I had a roommate whose family was wealthy and she got her hair done in high end salons, came back with two new winter coats and her grandma deposited money into her spending account each week.
I did graduate with some loans ($14k subsidized stafford), which I paid off within the 6 month grace period.
How did I do this? I had a childhood savings account that I used and then since I got a job working for the university immediately upon graduation, I dedicated 1 of my paychecks each month to loan repayment. So within the 6 months, I paid off my loans, interest-free.
Of course that was 6 months I had to live like a broke student still, but I was used to it so it didn’t matter that much. I continued to save that way for another year, so that when my DH (who also graduated from Northwestern in a similar financial situation) and I got married 3 months after his graduation, we had a savings account that allowed us to move 3 states away, pay deposit on an apartment and get set up so I could start graduate school. We had a simple (debt free) wedding 2 weeks before I started my graduate degree.
Fellow NU grad – 2011!
I don’t have anything to contribute really, except that I also worked as a Research Aide, I also did experiments for money (those were GREAT. The situation is not the same at my grad school), and that the above comment about scholarship money being directly deducted from your University scholarship was definitely the case at Northwestern.
2001 for me, 2002 for my DH! What’s sad is that 10 years later, my DH’s salary just now equals the cost of room and board at Northwestern. We get solicited constantly for money.
I’m now a SAHM and we live on my DH’s income. When I worked for Northwestern as a Research Technologist after I graduated, they paid me less per year than tuition cost. Even though I was an alum! I was actually treated very badly as an employee and was very happy to leave for graduate school. And had 4 years of experience in the field doing that type of research! Honestly, I don’t think NU is worth the money they charge. I did have some great experiences, but a quarter of a million dollars worth (at 1997-2001 rates)? Not so sure about that. And the craphole apartments in Evanston? Not worth the rent prices either!
I’m sorry to hear you guys had a bad experience with NU. I’m only a year out, but I’m pretty confident that undergrad at NU contributed to my being accepted where I was for grad school and the scholarship packages I was offered (of course there’s no way to know that for certain), and I got the job I’m procrastinating at right now because someone here is an NU alum.
As to how the school itself will treat me, I’m not sure yet. I’ve gotten a couple calls but I think they know I don’t have any money!
Oh, and to bring this back on topic (where is the edit feature?), I laughed out loud when the article suggested sub-$500 rents. Not in Evanston! I was paying $725 for one bedroom, in a two bedroom apartment, with three people living in it (one in living room). College towns are smart. They know students are captive to the area, and they know almost any rent will be less than what the school charges for Room & Board. And if you’re in a place with poor town-gown relations, it’ll be even worse.
In Northwestern’s defense, it is a great place to be an undergraduate woman in engineering. Much better than UIUC, from the experiences of people I know who went to either place.
But I thought they had a reputation for not giving much in financial aid.
I feel like I’m the lone dissenter but I agree with Sarah that students should choose a practical major. It was fun to read novels and talk about them with my classmates in college but now that I’m a few years into the real world (in a terrible economy), I sure wish I had chose a different major. I think the minor is a great place to follow your interests. Another option, at least at the state school I went to, is take more classes at the same cost. The way it worked was we paid for 12 hours of classes every semester. We could take up to 5 more hours for the cost of only 12. So I did, and it was wonderful. Another topic I’d love to see someone do a whole article on is different ways to get loan forgiveness. Some law schools will forgive loans if you go into the public sector after school. If you have a federal loan and work in the nonprofit sector for 10 years or 120 payments you might be eligible for loan forgiveness. If you are on time with your payments some loan companies will take $$ off the balance (this actually just happened to me, randomly, and it was like Christmas), etc.
To be honest, I found the tone of this article very condescending and it reads like someone with a lot of opinions on ‘kids today’. If you’re going to make the claim that many young people head off to university because they think they should and haven’t evaluated their options, or don’t know how to live within their means, I’d prefer some advice on how to address those challenges, rather than suggesting that they… What? Live within their means and get a job and apply for some scholarships? I’ve worked closely with high school youth and this is all basic stuff covered by the disinterested guidance counsellor, so they know it; they just face an entirely different set of challenges to implementing this advice. I have a real sensitivity to articles that I feel talk down to young people, and I feel that is what’s happening here.
Also “major in something that will make money”? Come on! Surely someone sees the value in the critical thinking and communication skills that are honed in the liberal arts? Surely someone else understands that what makes money today won’t necessarily make money tomorrow, but solid writing and debate and systems thinking skills are widely transferable over time? We’re a service economy now, and while they don’t need a university degree, young people need more comprehensive insight than is provided here.
I tried putting college loan costs in perspective for my children:
Two years community college and two years in-state school (living at home). On me, no debt.
Four years in-state school, living there, after I help you still graduate with a nice shiny new car payment on something you’ll never drive. Go ahead, look at the price of that new Dodge 300 or Ford Edge. Imagine buying it and the next day it gets run over by a steam-roller and the company goes bankrupt so now you’ve got years of payments on a big pile of scrap metal. That’s what it’s like.
Out of state or private school, you get to own a house you’ll never live in, but be paying on for the next twenty to thirty years. Imagine that, buying a house and watching someone else move in and live for free while you pay the mortgage for them every month. You get to pay that and rent for where you’re living too.
That helped a little with perspective, two so far have opted for the car loans.
I won a full-tuition scholarship to our hometown college. I had other awards available if I chose to go elsewhere.
My Dad made me an offer: if I took the home-town scholarship and lived at home, he’d buy me the car of my choice at graduation.
I ended up getting the car a year early because he & Mom decided to renovate my bedroom :-). I moved to a cheap studio apartment near campus. I worked part-time throughout college. It was, financially, by far the best choice for me (and I drove that car for 14 years).
Would my life have been different if I had gone to Cornell or Columbia instead? Yes. But not necessarily *better.*
In 1999, I managed to get out of a very expensive private university with only $17,000 in subsidized and unsubsidized federal loans. How did I do this? Well, not through very many grants. My middle class parents paid over $85,000 for my education. God bless them. They are very frugal people, and I am grateful to them.
In hindsight, I should have gone to the big state university that accepted me into their honors program on scholarship. But at the time, I wanted to get out of my region, and I loved the matching granite buildings and the small student body at my university. Yeah, I was taken in by all that. But I probably could have achieved the something similar at a state university with a little effort.
My main consolation is that I went to my alma mater to get my M.A. and Ph.D., and they ended up paying way more than my parents did for my graduate education.
As a parent to little ones, I have immense anxiety about their educational future. I am not as frugal as my parents, nor do I want to be. Plus I don’t want to sacrifice other savings goals and our retirement for them to attend university loan free. So how do I plan? We are treating the Roths as a college fund and will accelerate college savings when we have reached some of our home and retirement goals in a few years.
Mainly I cross my fingers and say a prayer that the unsustainable higher educational bubble will burst in time for my kids to benefit.
Just a note that the Special Direct Loan Consolidation program (on which information can be found at studentaid.ed.gov/specialconsolidation/) will allow you consolidate commercially held FFEL loans (serviced by, for example, Sallie Mae)and move them to a federal servicer.
It’s an effort by the US government to make it easier to pay back student loans by allowing people who have both Department of Education and commercially-held loans to bring them all under the federal servicer so that they can make one payment to one servicer.
There is a interest rate reduction incentive of .25% on all commercially held loans that are transferred (the interest rate will then be fixed for the life of the loan and cannot exceed 8.25%) and you may also be eligible for an additional .25% rate reduction for automating the payments to these loans once they have been transferred.
Note that you have to have both Department of Education held and commercially held loans to qualify for this program and the federal servicers (like Great Lakes and others) have been doing notifications of eligiblity since this past January. If you haven’t been notified there’s a link on the website provided above to find out if you’re eligible. The deadline to apply for consolidation is June 30th so you should move fast if you’re eligible and interested.
I may have missed some details so if you’re interested you should check out the website. Hope this helps!
I just did this to my last Stafford that was commercially held (Sallie Mae). I only heard about this last week, though the email I received strongly implied that they had sent me other messages (which was not the case).
I think that students need to put more emphasis on what they want to do for a living and determine their major from that. I feel like the majority of us determined our majors by saying “I like Shakespeare so I’m going to be an English major” or “I’m a finance major because I like money”. We don’t really take into account job prospects or what said jobs entail. If college students did some sort of shadowing for their future career paths, there would be a lot more accountability for (and hopefully a lot less of) the “I’m a waitress with a $100K English degree” stories that I always read about.
And I don’t mean to hate on English majors but I honestly have no idea what they do and I may be slightly jealous of their creative abilities.
Some of my English major friends are technical writers, marketing professionals, social media professionals, teachers, researchers, college professors, corporate educators, corporate communications specialists and librarians, to name a few.
I find when people critique “English degrees” they often think English is only about literature or creative writing. Depending on the label the university/college uses, “English” can include professional writing, technical writing, linguistics, stylistics, rhetoric, communications and journalism.
I think it is possible to turn your passion into a career — you just have to balance theory with practical skills.
Oops.. Forgot to say that i think you’re right about focusing on topics we like, not necessarily what we want to do. Liking money isn’t really a compelling reason to go into finance or economics. Wanting to help people as a financial planner? That to me would be a sound decision.
I was an English major and have managed, after many years as an overeducated secretary, to finally find a job as a grantwriter. I love my job and am glad I’m able to use my writing skills, but the years of doing something I hated made me wish I’d chosen a major where I would have at least been paid much more to do something I hated.
I couldn’t agree more with the writer about minoring in things that you love and majoring in something practical that you enjoy and can make money with.
Yes, everyone wants to be a rock star, art dealer, or movie critic, but the reality is this: this is a very, very tough job market. It’s hard to find jobs in industries that used to be automatic (such as working in restaurants), so spending thousands of dollars on an education that does little-to-nothing for your marketability is silly. For example, think of the big books over the course of the last several years and how very little-to-none of them were written by people who majored in english or literature in a college. That says something, doesn’t it?
I’ve spoken with professors recently who have said that they are not offering new degrees in certain liberal arts fields because there simply is no market for people in those fields. And telling students that they should major in whatever they want and that looking beyond the college years to see what their music industry or creative writing degree will most likely yield is negligence.
For the people saying that students should major in whatever interests them and not consider the consequences, consider this: it’s easy for you to look back at college and say ‘I wish I had majored in art, because that would have been a lot of fun and I would have surely found a position and be making lots of money in that field right now,’ because that’s a fantasy. You’re imagined scenario as to what life would have been like if you were a photo-journalist has very little to do with reality. You’ll never know what that would have been like, because you didn’t do that – because you were smart. I have a few friends who majored in art and design and they either have no jobs or have literally compromised on their morals and are currently in California editing adult films – because that’s the only job in the ‘film’ industry that they could find! Wake up and smell the coffee, people!
People can do whatever they want when it comes to their education, but smart people are going to invest thousands of dollars for an education in something that will yield returns – earning a degree in something that teaches as many if not more life skills than you would get with an art history degree, while preparing you to command a decent salary which will allow you and your family the financial freedom to not have to work cruddy jobs, simply because you have to, in order to pay the rent at your studio apartment.
You, Sarah, are absolutely correct!
If you get a degree in a particular field not because you love that field, but only because you think you can make money in it, you are making a mistake that will follow you for years.
You will probably be unhappy (to a greater or lesser degree) in your profession, and no matter how well you think you are hiding that fact, you will not be fooling employers and managers. The pay you end up receiving will reflect your lack of real enthusiasm. Only those who truly care can truly succeed.
Life is tough enough without giving away your soul.
I don’t think the author was suggesting we “give away our souls…” That’s a bit melodramatic, don’t you think? I think she was simply saying it’s important to build your skill set so you can provide a better future for yourself. But c’mon now, how many French poetry majors go on to be millionaires by writing sonnets about Toulouse? You don’t think a back-up plan is a good idea just in case you aren’t the rare, artistic gem your mommy said you are?
As for the “lack of enthusiasm,” I think it’s more your work ethic that can’t be hidden from employers and is, subsequently, reflected in your paycheck. At times, I hate my job. But I always do it the best I can. As such, I get a nice check twice a month that helps me to pay off my debts… which brings us back to the concept the author was alluding to: get a job that pays well = pay off debt faster.
Besides which, who are all these happy people who work in the field they majored in and love their jobs with the whole of their intact souls? I doubt if you polled people you’d get many check marks next to “I love my job and wouldn’t change a thing” or “I work in the field I majored in.”
In short, I’d modify your axiom a bit: only those who truly care enough to do their jobs properly instead of googling the Kardashians can truly succeed… Frankly, even that’s not always true. In the real, grown-up world, the most successful people are usually those who network and self-aggrandize well. And those who can qualify for high-paying, practical jobs. But success is subjective, I suppose. If you value having an unblemished soul over eating regularly – well, hey, it’s your life. Enjoy!
This is a great article! Pretty much exactly the advice that I would give to anyone headed off to college, and it’s advice I wish I had myself. My mom told me to just accept all of my student loans, and since she’s an accountant and should know what’s going on, I did. Now I’m paying for my two years of living the friggin’ high life. I especially appreciate your idea of “major in something that makes you money.” A lot of people are figuring out what their passions are in school, but it’s completely legitimate to major in something and get a job you can live with, and let that lead to something that you love.
As someone with 3 degrees, all in the art field, and with a substantial amount of grad school debt, this article frustrates me because I feel like it fails to show how to make a rational choice to go into debt. I had very little debt from my undergraduate years (a combination of work, scholarships, and grants took care of that for me), and I took 2 years to work before making the decision to go to graduate school. When I chose to go to grad school I only had 4 school options, (because of the field I’m in) and I chose the least expensive one. I did take out a lot of loans, and I am paying that back slowly but surely. Yet, every month when that amount is drafted, I am incredibly grateful for my education, for the opportunities it gave me, and for the fact that I could borrow money to make my dreams come true. I am fairly frugal, and do my best to save money, but I feel that there are times when we boil money for education down to a science, forgetting that heart and passion are just as important. There are times when the benefits outweigh the costs, and it’s a matter of helping young people see what those times are.
Good overview and I like the way you hit some the highlights of what to watch out for (in an upbeat way). It’s easy to get bogged down in the detail (there are whole sites on each of the topics you mention).
Perhaps, in the future, you’ll be able to do more articles on each of the topics you hit on in this article?
I liked the way you covered the high points, but didn’t get too deep in any one (there are whole websites devoted to each of the topics you bring up), and the light-hearted tone.
Perhaps, in a follow-on article, you can go into more detail on each of these from the perspective of a student through the process (getting the loan, living the loasn, paying back the loan) so people in a particualr phase won’t get bored reading stuff about the phase they’re not in.
What I never hear is this advice – pick the college you can afford, not the college you just HAVE to go to or the one all of your friends are going to. There are many excellent state colleges and community colleges that offer options at a fraction of the cost of private institutions. I chose a 2 year business college and then got a full-time job at a company that would pay the remainder of my bachelor degree tuition. I graduated with about $15,000 in debt and had that paid off quickly (becuase I already had a job). It was tough but it worked!
I think the details in this article are perfect for someone whetting her appetite, so to speak. Coupled with all the great links, it is an amazing reference. Very helpful!
This probably isn’t helpful aside from adding yet another reason to why student loans are terrible.
My wife had tons of loans from private undergrad and law school. Every 2 years or so the loan servicer will sell the loans to a new one, who will then sell the loans, etc… So we’ve got to re-setup payments and all that. The worst is trying to make additional payments to these companies. They basically do everything imaginable to prevent you from doing so, and if you don’t follow their instructions exactly, any extra money just applies to your next payment, rather than the principle.
Are there really people out there who want their extra money applied to future payments, rather than interest. ANYONE? I’m skeptical of all the bank regulation rules we have, but that’s one I could get on board with — extra payments on loans should go to principle, period.
If you don’t want to major in STEM fields thats OK, but just make sure theres a realistic plan to get a job after graduation.
People need to look at jobs that have demand and find a way to get one. If you can do that from a humanities or social science field then great. If you can’t get a decent job then you should reexamine the plan.
Its certainly not impossible to get a good job with a humanities degree but its not as easy as if you started with a major in a field that has practical applications and job demand. Lets not pretend that humanities majors aren’t more likely to end up as starbucks baristas than engineering majors.
I didn’t much care for this article, but I appreciate that the author has taken the time to respond to the many comments above (I tend to agree with the ones that say this is not new information, and seems too “motivational” without specifics). While I didn’t think the content was very well thought out or researched, I thought the style was fine and easy to follow.
One thing I haven’t seen anybody criticize yet is the advice to work a low paying job in college. Certainly, if a student can’t find anything else, this is worth doing to pay off loans; however, better advice would be to get a part time job in the field you wish to pursue after college. This is the true meaning of “networking” in a way that will help you find a job post-college — not going to social or club events with your peers. You get contacts in your field and come out with a degree AND a decent resume.
When I am looking to hire fresh college graduates, I feel much more positively about the ones who have applicable experience — even very low level experience — than ones who worked at the student union coffee shop for 4 years. My spouse made this mistake, and even though he got much higher grades than I did, he is on a lower rung on his career ladder because he had to spend precious years after college in an entry level position while I was able to move up more quickly.
Again, “any job” is better than no job during college, both to pay for loans and to show basic employment skills. However, a job related to the field the student wants to go into is the best.
I totally agree – the internship part of my degree paid a little but got me skills and a job post-college.
We had a spirited discussion about this topic on our blog a few weeks back, mainly about the luxury of taking unpaid internships or summer classes vs. working for minimum wages.
http://nicoleandmaggie.wordpress.com/2012/04/16/should-kids-have-to-take-a-minimum-wage-job-while-theyre-teens
I think there’s some real class differences– if you can afford to do some of these kinds of things rather than working for the (usually low salary) money you can get a real leg up once you graduate. That’s not even including extra time spent on studies and sleeping that can increase what you get out of school itself (both in terms of GPA and real learning).
Headed to grad school soon. Was fortunate to finish undergrad without any debt, but now find myself very unfamiliar with how loans work… thanks for some valuable insight!
I am so sick of things telling me to save early for my kids education. I would love to (seriously) but then you get the “save for retirement because no one will give you a loan to pay for that.” Finally – seriously – they tell me to save 10,000 a year per child. I only have two, but finding 20,000 a year in savings after tax is seriously a huge deterrent. I think our system is broken. I expect I’ll have to pay part of kids college, they’ll pay part, we will try for financial aid (scholarships), and hopefully they’ll start at community college and work part-time throughout. But it infuriates me that that can be the recommendation, saving 10k a year per kid. It’s the kind of recommendation that makes you not even want to try.
Those recommendations don’t usually take into account financial aid packages and just look at sticker cost. Generally if the parents are not high income the kids will get grants (and loans) from a good portion of the places they get in.
I don’t know what our salary will be 10 years down the road, but I’m guessing we won’t qualify for aid. And I took the lower numbers on everything, not the high end schools. I know it’s not truly accurate, but it is quite a daunting number to look at. It’ll cost the same as my house, for each child!
If you won’t qualify for aid, then you and your kids can probably afford some package of direct payment and loans including saving now. Assuming that these are things that you value. Not everybody values higher education.
We’re not planning on qualifying for aid and have been putting away $500/month/kid on top of our regular retirement savings. It just comes directly out of savings into the 529 each month without us really noticing.
Yes, truly, the system is broken because it has not provided for your children’s education or your retirement. Seriously. I say, don’t try. The world needs janitors.
Well, aren’t you a nice lovely bucket of fun. My kids will go to college, we’ll figure it out, and we’ll have retirement money and I don’t expect we’ll benefit from social security. But I don’t think the system is working, because I think that we’re in the minority, and a lot of kids will have to either be janitors, as you so kindly suggest, or go into massive debt that will suck for them for life. I guess you do find it reasonable to have to save 10k/year per kid in order to send them to college, and you think all families should have those resources? Seems insanely privileged of you to have that opinion.
My parents worked full-time, my father as a mechanic for many years, to put me through school. I worked part-time myself, and applied for scholarships. So “privileged”? Only in the sense that my parents didn’t treat my education like a painful obligation. Insane, right? To be clear, I don’t think all families have those resources. But I do think people shouldn’t have kids unless they can afford them. They’re a little more expensive than goldfish or terriers, usually. So with regards to your being “so sick of things telling you to save early for your kids education,” all I can say is good luck. If your children are as motivated about their education as you, I’m sure they’ll go far.
When graduating high school, the whole “you can be anything you want” spiel is everywhere. While I do appreciate this (and I totally did become what I wanted), sometimes it’s nice to have a different, real-life take on what you’re in for. The author’s approach feels like tough love– a nice balance to many other opinions out there. Would’ve loved to have this resource back when I graduated!
I agree. But I feel like myself at 18 would never have listened to the advice I could give my past self now that I’m 25. Live and learn, I guess.
Can’t help agreeing with Sarah and others here who warn against making your passion your livelihood. There should be some middleground between parting with your soul and planning your career around a passion that might leave you eating ramen noodles seven nights a week and living in a van down by the river. And as appealing as the idea of making your love for 16-century French philosophy into a career may be, for many people, the 9-to-5 grind has a way of taking the joy out of whatever it is you thought you wanted to spend your life doing. There’s a lot to be said for not worrying about how your going to pay the rent each month. Nice job Sarah!
Excellent article about the mindset shift necessary to succeed through (not just in) college. Our parents were thrilled to let us borrow from our futures because college wasn’t a given for them. It was valuable at any price. However, we kids discovered that we had left ourselves with no room for error, and when we erred we found ourselves in a financial hole that our parents couldn’t imagine (and that couldn’t be discharged with bankruptcy. Now I am a parent and I realize the true value of a college education, that you can over-pay. I’ll pay off my own kids college before we’re done paying off ours.
Sarah,
Great article. The direct, honest approach is refreshing. A keen point you bring up is motivation. The best plans not followed through due to a lack or a loss of motivation can (and have) resulted in dire consequences. I look forward to your next article!
Regarding the last sentence of the article, I know I’m young and don’t have kids (and don’t know if I really want any since they’re f’ing expensive), but I don’t really regard having kids and paying for their education as what my legacy would be. I’m not trying to be nitpicky, but wondering if anyone else thought the same?
” You can even save for a few years while working there and then quit to do what you want while you pay your own way”
in other words, don’t go to college, and find a smart way to pursue your passion, you’ll save 5 years of your life, another 5 being miserable, and those 10 years invested in your passion and deliberate living will get you to a higher point than this back to square one option.
I just posted a comment on a similar topic over here: http://jlcollinsnh.wordpress.com/2012/05/23/the-college-conundrum/.
Here it is again, for the students reading this who have not taken on debt yet…
I went to community college and transferred as many credits as possible over to the local university where I finished my bachelor’s while living rent-free at home (I paid my own insurance, phone, books, and chipped in on groceries). My mom covered two years of tuition with college savings for me; I paid for the community college credits (as a result my education came in under budget so my mom gave me the remaining funds in the form of mutual funds and a retirement account). During that entire time I waited tables, file-clerked in an office, and babysat on Saturday nights. My first job out of college didn’t offer tuition assistance but I always had it in my mind that I would NEVER pay for a master’s degree. For my second job I worked as an administrator full time for an elite university which paid for my master’s at a local Ivy League’s continuing education program which offered classes at night. It took me 5 years to complete because I stayed within the tuition assistance allowance each year but in the end I had a free master’s degree (and was vested in my university’s pension…).
My husband has 3 degrees: bachelor, master’s, and PhD from an Ivy. He got PAY PLUS BENEFITS to get his PhD. He gradually worked into his master’s program. First he was an employee of the school (earning very little) taking classes there for free, then he took educational leave from his job (some universities have this benefit for their employees) to pursue the degree full time. At that point he began working as a teacher’s assistant which provided him with a stipend, medical insurance, and free tuition. He left with a $100,000 master’s degree from an elite state school PLUS $20,000 in a retirement account and no debt. He did not have much support for his bachelor’s but he went to a small state school so the expenses were very low. Still he took on $8,000 in debt to complete his bachelor’s (which we are attacking now…after all this schooling and starting a family in the midst of it we are finally schooling ourselves on finances which is how I found GRS…).
Both of us took the long hard way through these degrees, working jobs in and out of our fields, now we’re both in careers that we love with very little debt. For the most part we did what we could afford to do and we worked the systems to our advantage.
One thing that is overlooked about going to college is that it is a maze just going through the system: you have to be diligent to survive it. It was a pain transferring all those credits from the community college. My husband showed up at the same administrative assistant’s desk every morning months before the semester started to find out what Teaching Assistantships he could get as they were very competitive. But of course it was totally worth the inconvenience!
An even better option in majoring in a money-making field and minoring in a passion is to work with the career counselors at your university to find a way to use your passion in a way that will support you financially. It doesn’t have to be one or the other.
I love Sarah’s first point that Student Loans don’t make college free. I think it is very easy to feel like all I have to do is sign a piece of paper to attend one’s dream school and forget that in 4 years I will have to start paying the loans back.
Chase Miller
In the comments, I see a lot of comments to the tune of “I wish they taught me that” or “I wish they showed me that”. I grew up in a third-world country, and when I came to US I did not know how to write a check, let alone understand anything about student loans. I learned them – it’s not rocket science, you know, not that different from other loans. Student loans for my education worked out great. When people – including young people – just wait for others to show them the way, hold their hand – how can they expect to be successful? Information is out there, and was out there even before the age of the internet. Come and get it. Nobody owes you a living. Nobody owes you a college education, either
I agree with a lot of the financial advice here about college (keep debt manageable, work through school), but going to the cheapest school isn’t always the right call. What it comes down to is being smart and determining if the goals of the program align with your goals for your education. I’ll admit to being lucky, but taking out student loans to go to a private liberal arts university is not always financial suicide. I went to a brand name private liberal arts university, turning down a full ride at the state school, and it was the right decision for me. Looking at my HS and college classmates there are a couple of conclusions I’d draw:
1) While a liberal arts degree doesn’t set you on a specific career path, but there are many opportunities open to you if you make them. It won’t fall into your lap and you need to sell yourself, but you can make it happen.
2) If you’re going to get a liberal arts degree, do it at a liberal arts school. If you’re getting a more professional degree (business, communications, engineering), go to a school known for that type of program, which often includes public universities.
3) Don’t choose a brand name school because it’s your ticket to a good job, particularly if it’s a liberal arts school. The brand name is only helpful if your goals and values are similar to alumni who will be helpful with networking, or HR people who recognize the name. In the case of liberal arts schools this often boils down to passion and hard work.
Great post! Student loans/depts can have negative influence to students motivation. I’m a student too and i found some interesting things how students can earn their money. You can visit my blog. I give my own experiences. (www.richstudentblog.com
Student loan debt is the only debt eluding me at the moment. I wanted to have all my debts paid off within 3 years. I’ve come up short – in those 3 years I paid off about 70% of my debt. Still quite an accomplishment. All I have left is student loans. I had to take on a little extra debt due to getting married. Not much though!
I am pretty disappointed by this article…and the idea that if everyone just picked a practical, professional degree then everyone would be wealthy and get to follow their passions in all the free time they’ll surely have when they retire at 30…yeah right. Newsflash: making money isn’t the be all and end all of life. Anyone out there who has worked a job they hate and not followed their passions knows that no amount of money is a fair trade off. I read GRS to find out how to best use the income I get from the career that I love, not to hear a lecture on why a big salary is the only thing that matters in life.
Um, this is the “Get Rich SLOWLY” blog…why are you advocating that “Most importantly, major in something that will make money and leave your passions for your minor… You can even save for a few years while working there and then quit to do what you want while you pay your own way.” I read GRS for practical advise on how to grow my wealthy slowly, not for vague advise on a pie-in-the-sky retire early scheme. Moreover, why would I want to work in a field or at a job that doesn’t interest me? What’s so wrong with going for a lower salary to do a job that you love? To me there is no amount of money that could ever be a fair trade off for pursuing my true passions.