How to pay for college is a stressful subject. Honestly, it makes me want to bury my head in the sand. I opened a college savings account for my oldest daughter in 1999, dumping a small chunk of change in an “aggressive” tech fund, thinking I wanted to maximize return and not worry too much about risk, since at that time college was a long way off. Ok, so that didn’t work out. My “less risky” funds have not fared much better of late.
What is almost as stressing is all the talk about the high cost of college. Luke Swarthout, a higher education advocate for U.S. PIRG, compared college affordability to buying a car – if the only ones available were Bentleys and Rolls Royces. But I worry about the kids who want to go to college and get discouraged from even trying. There are affordable schools out there and with tuition assistance it can be a manageable expense. Why is it that colleges post such a high “sticker price,” even though the majority of their students don’t pay it?
Comments
Never take a Sallie Mae student Loan
12/15/03 I took a Sallie Mae Loan for my daughter
12/15/03 borrowed $6250.00
1/20/04 began paying back loan at average of
$70 per month I've paid over $4,000 in 4 years.
I still owe
$5,587.
Sallie Mae loans are set up for 138 months (11.5 years)You will have grandchildren before you pay it off.
No incentive to pay early. You pay double your loan amount no matter what.
No wonder students default on loans.
Interesting, student loans have had a low default rate. The idea is that an education, while not a tangible asset, pays off. But with the increasing debt of students, and the current economic slowdown (if not a recession) I wonder if that will remain true.
Though I am single, and I have tremendous student-loan debt, I am not as concerned about the cost of college than I am about the devaluation of college degrees.
I used to believe that everyone should go to college, but I'm not too sure about that mantra now. The push for every Tom, Dick and Patsy to attend college and the crushing effects of globalization have rendered many college degrees almost useless -- in the economic sense.
The U.S. government needs to rethink its education policy and to start investing in vocational and technical schools more heavily.