The Reality of Paying for College
October 26, 2011 13 Comments
So a lot of people have been talking about a picture from 53% that has been making the internet rounds where the person holding the sign claims to be about to graduate from college debt-free. Support for this concept and deep skepticism seems to fall pretty much along party lines.
Democratic operative Ames writes that:
…the anonymous subject of a popularly circulated Facebook picture, who claims to be “about to graduate completely debt free” based only on her own hard work, is either lying, or has rich parents.
While I had been told in 2008 that the Left was about hope it seems to be more about deep pessimism these days. But maybe there is a reason. Let’s look at he specifics. Ames attended Rice University and NYU Law School. Both prestigious and appropriately expensive.
Rice – $34,900 per school year
NYU – $31,536 per school year
Now I don’t know Ames’ specifics but I imagine he got some serious financial aid because he’s a bright guy. Even then, it seems like the tuition bill was probably still pretty high and he presumably borrowed a lot or ‘has rich parents’. But maybe there are other options. I didn’t borrow AND I didn’t have rich parents so I went the community college route. I attended Jefferson Community College for all of my basics. JCC’s current tuition is currently $3,240 per school year. This contrasts with the University of Louisville where I finished up my degrees. UL is currently at $11,040 per school year.
So we have some options here:
Rice University – $34,900
University of Louisville – $11,040
Jefferson Community College – $3,240
The first one would be a no-go for me. The second one would be tight without parental help or grant money and the third one is completely doable with money to spare. Sock away the extra savings and you’ve got a nest egg for the last two years of increased tuition at a non-community college. Do like I did and work two jobs and it gets even easier.
I’m not saying that paying for college is easy. I have a daughter starting college next year and I’m terrified of the bills, but it’s neither impossible nor a lie, as Ames and others have claimed.
Ah, Rice was about half that when I started. They really ramped up the tuition since I graduated, prompting people to be pretty upset about it. NYU it sounds like you have right, though. I’m afraid I had scholarships from neither, but my grandpa left my parents quite a bit of money, which (to their credit — they’re fantastic people, as was he) they used to pay for college for both my little sister and I, provided we promise to do the same for our kids. It’s a good little tradition. NYU was paid for with all loans, all the time, but it’s a good enough school, so it’s worth it. All things considered, I really got quite lucky. In none of these posts, you’ll note, am I complaining about my situation. I have tons and tons of loans, but I knew what I was getting myself in to.
Now, I acknowledge that I could’ve gone to college and probably law school for less. The point is that those options are limited, and won’t, in all cases, be covered by just “hard work,” summed up in my last sentence: “none of us who make it make it on our own.”
This is especially the case for professional schools. UGA Law, a middle-tier state law school, clocks in at $15,000, and that pedigree isn’t going to guarantee you a job, much less a good one. To get a good legal job right out, you have to go to one of the top five — Yale, Stanford, Harvard, Columbia, NYU — with the corresponding price tag. Pretty hard to pull yourself up by those bootstraps.
Which is not to say it’s impossible. My grandpa (the same one who left us all this money) was a second-generation immigrant, orphaned at a young age, and quite poor. But he worked his way through Wesleyan. After serving as a lieutenant commander in the Navy in World War II, he came home no more wealthy than when he left. But the government picked up his tuition to go to Yale Law, as they did with many, many officers. What I’m getting at is, he started poor and alone, and worked incredibly hard to get to a certain point — but he took the last step in his story with the help of the American government. “None of us who make it make it on our own.”
Now, finally — do we really have to have my last name here
? I try to keep this anonymous… especially since I’m currently applying for (lower-paying but awesomer) government jobs…
I have no problem with using Pell Grants. The FB post though simply mentioned graduating debt free and you called it a lie. If someone settles for a lower-tier school AND is willing to put in the time it takes to work up to a higher-paying job (y’know, one that doesn’t discriminate based on one’s alma matter) then they CAN do it debt-free.
If it will make you feel better about the name I WILL offer to change it to lower case ames grawert. Perhaps readers will assume it is not one formal person but a collection of bloggers.
Well it’s not “discrimination” based on alma mater — it’s just attaching too much value to rankings. Which they definitely do. There’s some value to going to a better law school beyond the perception, to be sure, but it’s construed to be much more than it is.
And, “work[ing] up to a higher-paying job” is not really a thing in the legal world. You either start on the firm track or don’t.
Lastly, I didn’t call it a lie. The linked post expanding on the math did.
We have all kinds of law firms here in Louisville with lawyers educated here in Louisville. Maybe it’s just about the firms you want o belong to?
Re-read the quote from your post. You said it was a lie OR she had rich parents. You don’t seem to allow for a third possibility.
Right. Not the right kind of work, and not comparable pay, either.
My claim is she was lying as to her specific situation.
The lawyers around here all have big houses in exclusive neighborhoods. Seems like they are doing alright.
But how can you be sure she is lying if you make allowances for the possibility one could graduate debt-free?
Sure, but different standards of living in different cities, right?
And — I make the allowance that it’s possible to graduate debt-free in some rare circumstances, based on your own hard work, and if you (1) don’t want to go to a state university for all four years and (2) don’t plan on graduate school. But the girl in the picture tied her particular story to a university where that’s mathematically impossible.
It’s not a rare circumstance at all. I did it and most of my friends did. My oldest (who starts school next year) is going to do it as well or I’m going to strangle her.
If my understanding is correct the person holding the sign went to a state school. With a 90% scholarship that is completely do-able.
It strikes me that I forgot to reply to this. Anyways, how many people get 90% scholarships? Is that a realistic answer for the majority?
For my part, I think the answer is “incur the debt, pay it off,” because (honestly) a state school would’ve given me a 90% scholarship, but couldn’t have gotten me to where I am, and wouldn’t have gotten me to where I want to be. But this is all a way of saying, graduating debt free isn’t a realistic possibility for most of the population.
Actually Ames – it is. You just have to re-evaluate your goals and the timeline. Someone willing to spend 5-6 years in college, start off in community college or a state school and also work their ass off can do it. Plus there’s always Pell Grants or other FA.
I went to both undergrad and grad school on scholarships.
My undergrad scholarship paid for about 80% of my tuition to a private university as long as I kept my grades up. I worked summers and part-time during the year to help cover the rest. I finished with a perfect 4.0.
In both of my grad school experiences, most students were expected to teach and be paid a stipend for teaching as well as having all their tuition covered. Other arrangements existed, but I didn’t take them. I very much wanted to teach, and so I did.
I spent over a decade in higher education. I got only a little parental help along the way, and I graduated debt-free. Not impossible to do.
Jason – my experience was very similar (minus the 4.0 !) It took me exactly 10 years to finish college because I had a few semesters where I could only take a couple of classes for financial reasons and a couple of semesters where I had to sit out and save for the next term. It sucks to take that long but in the meantime I developed some marketable skills in my spare time (it’s amazing how in-demand basic Excel talents are).
I had too much fun to net the 4.0 as an undergrad. I’m close, in grad school (one B+, damn you Financial Accounting!), but I’m much older and wiser, so there’s that.
I had an academic scholarship as an undergrad and a couple of small grants, as well as a Stafford Loan. I didn’t graduate “debt-free”, but it was close.
Admittedly, I graduated in 1993 as an undergrad and college tuition has been going up at a crazy rate in the last 20 years, per year. However, “I can’t afford a top tier school on loans” isn’t necessarily a great argument for “college is not affordable”.
Don’t go to a top tier school on loans. If you go to USC and you hit up their financial aid department for a 9% loan on 25K a year, there should be people telling you that this is a bad idea. Including the folk at USC.