25 years old and deep in debt

[Caliga]

I have no sympathy for morons who accumulate $60k+ in debt to go to prestige schools.  Particularly since I passed on a prestige school myself because I didn't want to have to make up the $12/year shortfall.

Same (although Boston U is still a pretty good school).

[stjaba]

I have no sympathy for morons who accumulate $60k+ in debt to go to prestige schools.  Particularly since I passed on a prestige school myself because I didn't want to have to make up the $12/year shortfall.

Same (although Boston U is still a pretty good school).

Yep. Though I got a couple friends who ran up six figure tabs at non-prestige schools, which is even worse.

[Count]

whatever guys my prestige is the best this side of christopher nolan

[merithyn]

I have no sympathy for morons who accumulate $60k+ in debt to go to prestige schools.  Particularly since I passed on a prestige school myself because I didn't want to have to make up the $12/year shortfall.

What if that prestige school actually offers a significantly better education? And what if you live right by it, and would have to move your family to attend a less prestigious school?

There are a lot more factors at play than simply budget for most people.

[Eddie Teach]

whatever guys my prestige is the best this side of christopher nolan

And yet you want to squander it on some public service shit.   

[Phillip V]

Let's not forget that it's not only the financial kind of debt that students leave college with.

1 in 4 college female will be raped before she graduates.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/27/education/amherst-account-of-rape-brings-tension-to-forefront.html

[Darth Wagtaros]

I have no sympathy for morons who accumulate $60k+ in debt to go to prestige schools.  Particularly since I passed on a prestige school myself because I didn't want to have to make up the $12/year shortfall.

Same (although Boston U is still a pretty good school).

Even state schools can cost 60K+ over four years.

[celedhring]

Thanks to European scholarship programs, I managed to get an Ivy League degree and run up less than 20k in debt in the process. But yeah, one of my classmates once confessed to me he was €250k in debt. 250k!!! Ludicrous.

Hooray for socialism.

[Phillip V]

Thanks to European scholarship programs, I managed to get an Ivy League degree and run up less than 20k in debt in the process. But yeah, one of my classmates once confessed to me he was €250k in debt. 250k!!! Ludicrous.

Hooray for socialism.

Did he have a girlfriend/wife?

[celedhring]

Thanks to European scholarship programs, I managed to get an Ivy League degree and run up less than 20k in debt in the process. But yeah, one of my classmates once confessed to me he was €250k in debt. 250k!!! Ludicrous.

Hooray for socialism.

Did he have a girlfriend/wife?

He had a boyfriend, he was gay. He didn't live extravagantly but certainly not the life of a poor college student. Big flat in the West Side, expensive clothing, lots of partying. The fact is that my career (Film) can be very expensive if you are very competitive and want to spend a lot in short films/networking to get yourself noticed, which he did.

[MadImmortalMan]

Let's not forget that it's not only the financial kind of debt that students leave college with.

1 in 4 college female will be raped before she graduates.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/27/education/amherst-account-of-rape-brings-tension-to-forefront.html

Complete BS. 

[Ideologue]

OK, but, like I told Beeb, you're an Old.

Of course what you paid is peanuts in comparison to the average new grad, let alone the average matriculant, in 2012.

That said, I wish they'd get more representative people to feature in these stories.  Someone with $50k or $60k in debt and washing dishes is a little more median, but highlights the same problem.  I think news idiots prefer the sensationalism and comment-generating features of top quintile debt.  It's all the same problem--but unfortunately you get this, no offense, frankly stupid reaction from 40 year olds who went to college in 1990.  I DIDN'T PAY THAT MY GOD WHAT A RIDICULOUS HUMAN BEING.  Try applying high single and often two figure percentage increases per year for over a decade, mathemagician, see what happens to your obviously more responsibly borrowed tuition.

The tuition at my university has gone up 115% since I graduated, and 185% since I started.  Today's undergrad tuition is $199.54 per hour, all general fees included, for a total of $2993.10 for a full load semester.  When I went, my Bright Futures scholarship paid the entire tuition plus a $300 book allowance.  The scholarship is now $100 per credit hour with no allowance, meaning a full semester would cost me $1500 + books today.  My books were on the order of $500 per semester[1].  So, $1850 per semester out of pocket plus other expenses, which weren't much because I lived at home.  $15,790[2] for a full degree, of which all will be covered by other funds.  Room and board is on the order of $5500 per semester, including meal plan.  That is not much more expensive than when I went, about in line with inflation.  The numbers we have:

Per semester:
Tution: $3000
Books $ 650
Room and board: $5500
Total: $9150

When I started at FIU, living on campus, in 1998 I had almost $10,000 in scholarship and grant money per semester.  My impression from articles like this is that is still a reasonable amount for someone with my academic standing and need basis.  Therefore now, as then, I could go to FIU or FAU effectively for free; even if I decided to acquire debt, it would be manageable.  Thus, without a distorted view of reality, I have no sympathy for morons who accumulate $60k+ in debt to go to prestige schools.  Particularly since I passed on a prestige school myself because I didn't want to have to make up the $12/year shortfall.

[1] Prices have not changed much, as I know from buying and looking at books recently.
[2] Electrical engineering requires 128 hours.

Scholarships being principally awarded to attract high-credential students, and being funded in large part by other people's student loan checks, it's good to know that you have no sympathy for the people who subsidized your tuition.  So not only do scholly folks, like you I suppose, have the best shot at success in whatever academic milieu they enter, they also suck money from the pockets of their less-accomplished peers.  Neat, fair, and not perverse whatsoever.

VOTE ROMNEY.

(Bear in mind that my perspective on the matter is that of a law grad, not an engineer, but I'd suspect the same principles apply.  And I understand there is a social good involved in giving scholarships to people who would probably have no problem taking out and paying off their loans.  That said, the cost of a social good should not be borne primarily by a group that is not only small, and not only possessed of worse odds in making it, but in direct competition with the fucker they're providing assistance to.  To the extent scholarship money comes from private third parties or the government, it's positive; to the extent it relies on cross-subsidization, it's abominable.)

[Ideologue]

I have no sympathy for morons who accumulate $60k+ in debt to go to prestige schools.  Particularly since I passed on a prestige school myself because I didn't want to have to make up the $12/year shortfall.

Same (although Boston U is still a pretty good school).

Yep. Though I got a couple friends who ran up six figure tabs at non-prestige schools, which is even worse.

If you're paying sticker or close to it, there aren't many law schools I know of where you can get out for less, even accepting crippling personal austerity, than about $70k, and generally speaking it's going to be six-figured.  CUNY is the only one that springs to mind; I think it has tuition of around $12, $13k; this is radically cheap, which is kind of sad.  But take the bus or train or dirigible or whatever people do in New York across town to NYU or NYLS and it's like three times that.  (One of them being pretty fucking far from a "prestige school," and which should be burned to the ground, along with every other for-profit LS in this country.)

[Ideologue]

Also, Beeb, I'm sorry I called you an Old.  I was frustrated.

[Jacob]

Complete BS. 

What makes you say that?