Degrees of debt: Soaring college costs hobble a generation

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Source: New York Times

ADA, Ohio — Kelsey Griffith graduates on Sunday from Ohio Northern University. To start paying off her $120,000 in student debt, she is already working two restaurant jobs and will soon give up her apartment here to live with her parents. Her mother, who co-signed on the loans, is taking out a life insurance policy on her daughter.

“If anything ever happened, God forbid, that is my debt also,” said Ms. Griffith’s mother, Marlene Griffith.

Ms. Griffith, 23, wouldn’t seem a perfect financial fit for a college that costs nearly $50,000 a year. Her father, a paramedic, and mother, a preschool teacher, have modest incomes, and she has four sisters. But when she visited Ohio Northern, she was won over by faculty and admissions staff members who urge students to pursue their dreams rather than obsess on the sticker price.

“As an 18-year-old, it sounded like a good fit to me, and the school really sold it,” said Ms. Griffith, a marketing major. “I knew a private school would cost a lot of money. But when I graduate, I’m going to owe like $900 a month. No one told me that.”


Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/47400500/ns/business-us_business/

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Should have took Mitt Romney's advice and borrowed from her parents.

[Travis_0004]

1. Should have went to a more affordable college.

Or a community college for 2 years, then transferred.

[Posteritatis]

3. Hahahaha, "affordable college." (nt)

[GreenPartyVoter]

8. Indeed!

[liberalmike27]

7. I Read an Article

That said the total student debt is about one trillion.

We spend 1.2 Trillion all-in on the military, wars, weapons, bases, care, veterans benefits and aid. In one year, or spending 1/5 less in five years on war, we could've sent poor kids to college for free for the last 5 decades or so.

How ridiculous is our constant warring, when you see direct comparisons like this.

[24601]

10. You can't really be blaming the military because colleges and universities got in the habit of

consistently raising their charges?

Football and basketball coaches, administrators and favored professors are paid like kings. For example, from data 5 years old Coach K at Duke got $2.2 Million annually. David Silvers, a dermatology professor at Columbia University in New York made $4.33 million and Zev Rosenwaks, a professor of reproductive medicine at Cornell, made $3.15 million.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aU52P6i3W36g&refer=us

By contrast, the members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff would make $247,044 annually except that the pay cap limits them to $179.700.

http://www.militaryfactory.com/military_pay_scale.asp

[exboyfil]

13. I would be the last person to support big money in sports

but the Duke basketball team probably funds most of the other sports at Duke (same for many major college programs). Our local university does bundle off from $3-$5 out of the general fund to the sports program, and I think it should stop but it is like trying to roll a boulder uphill. Even those parents angry about the closing of the lab school don't understand that the university just does not have the money to do both - they want football/basketball and the small lab school.

As far as doctors - short of drafting them you are not going to get them to leave private practice to teach, and where are the doctors of tomorrow going to come from. You also cite all private colleges - I don't have as big an issue with them. They can spend their money any way they chose. On the other hand if their students are not paying back the student loans, they should be excluded from future participation (a way to check the mindless borrowing which is gong on).

[Travis_0004]

19. High coach salaries are seldom an issue

Since you use Duke as an example, Dukes baskeball program (2009-2010, first figures I found) cost 12.3 million.

They generated a profit of 26.7 million. Most major sports programs are profitbale, and they fund the sports that may not be. Also good coaches cost money, but I don't really see a problem with that.

[October]

23. Community College is changing, too...

A lot of those credits from your local Community College won't transfer to a 4-year school. They now play the same games as traditional 4-year colleges to keep you there longer.

It's quite "fixed," and difficult to manage to the student's benefit.

[wordpix]

28. you have to check - most comm. college credits are accepted by state universities

but not by private colleges.

[skepticscott]

2. While it's true that college costs are soaring

what is also hobbling this generation (and others) is the attitude "I don't care whether I can afford this or not, I want it, so I'm going to have it"

That mindset is hobbling not just individuals and families, but entire nations.

[flamingdem]

12. It's hard not to agree with that but times have changed

Before the economy crashed people saw easy money, easy jobs, easy housing.. I'm assuming she got caught up at that time.

[a la izquierda]

4. Yikes...

I thought I had a lot of debt, and I went through a BA, MA, and PhD. I owe just slightly more than Ms. Griffin. And I have a job that pays me well enough to afford my bills.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

6. Did a quick search on Ohio Northern University

Listed as a private United Methodist affiliated university. Tuition is $35,678 a year for arts and sciences slightly higher if one goes into engineering or pharmacy school.

I'm sure a public university would have charged her less. That said the rise in the cost of post secondary education has far exceeded that of inflation.

[pstokely]

20. A lot of private universities give out of lot of $ in scholarships

Does Ohio Northern?

[riderinthestorm]

24. Costs for 2012 at the University of Illinois, a public state school for undergrads is $30k

Last edited Mon May 14, 2012, 10:18 PM - Edit history (1)

Edited to add that's in-state tuition. Out of state is higher

[tralala]

5. College is a scam

Hell, life is a scam... it's just one scam after another until they finally clean you out.

[DirkGently]

11. Decent grades & desire should be all a college degree costs anyone.

[exboyfil]

14. I would like to see a copy of the letter from Drexel (is it posted anywhere?)

to make up my own mind on how deceptive it is. When I borrowed I remember seeing an amortization schedule. I was ticked off about the 1% origination fee which did not come up until I was prepared to sign the papers (it is amazing how many times lenders pull this crap). Maybe I did not see it in the initial disclosures (I was 19 at the time).

We should be teaching this stuff in High Schools. I am not sure what my daughter's High School does because we have not gotten to that point yet, and she is not taking any sort of Economics through them (she is doing it online instead). Financial aid letters should be in two parts - scholarships and grants and then loans. They should never be combined. I know the universities are fighting it (as they would since alot of them are not offering sufficient pay back on their degrees so they will lose students).

I do not know how Ohio State can call itself a public university anymore. It only gets 7% of its funds from the state? I have heard that University of Virginia is also thinking that way.

Every student who is borrowing should see an amortization schedule at the very least.

Things are going to get really ugly going forward. At least in our state the universities have been forced to offer guaranteed four year degrees (you take all your classes on time and pass, you will graduate in four years). You will never be shut out of a class in the four year schedule. That combined with the push for decent articulation agreements with the community colleges may mean less time paying students will be at the universities. I know my older daughter is planning ot make full use of community college while in High School. The universities are already starting to chip at the edges by requiring students to pass additional math tests even though they have community college credit. Their recognition of AP is also very poor. Most exclusive private colleges won't even look at community college credit (I think private colleges are a fool's game myself). I was going to have my daughter take a flyer at the University of Chicago - since they will not honor her online community college credit - I told her not to bother.

Our state schools are already charging over 20% more in tuition for engineering, nursing, and business majors. That trend is just going to accelerate.

[limpyhobbler]

15. Forgive all student loan debt now to save the economy.

A One Trillion Dollar bailout.

That's the stimulus we need to get the economy going.

All of our Democratic economists, Krugman, Reich etc., they all keep saying we need a big stimulus to get out of the depression. This answer is staring America in the face but we refuse to admit it because people are so friggin hung up on the idea that nobody should get away with something for free, that people need to be punished for their poor financial decisions.

Even though in many cases, when people took these loans out, the decision seemed to make a lot of sense to them.

If we can bail out the banks twice, bail out the auto industry, afford wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, afford to flush billions down the toilet waging a failed useless war on drugs, afford to incarcerate more people that any other nation on earth...then why can't we bail out our own people when the economy tanks and they are drowning in debts that many will never be able to pay off. The system is rigged to protect wealth for those who have it. But when working class (middle class) people need a little help, there's never any money, we can't afford it. What gives.

[midnight]

22. This would be a step in the right direction.... Then help all the underwater mortgages...

[limpyhobbler]

26. They should have been the first ones helped.

Back in 2007 or 2008 during the big mortgage crisis, when all these mortgages were under water and hundreds of thousands were defaulting or at risk of default, families being tossed out on their assess in the middle of winter.

What's our response? We need to help these banks. Why not just help the homeowners instead? Our understanding of the mortgage crisis was ass backward upside down. The heart of the crisis was in the people losing their homes, or living in fear, or losing the value of their primary asset to devaluation. Yet the goverment response was focused around the issue of how to protect banks from losing money based on risks they had taken. We supposedly needed to bail out the banks to protect the broader economy. But there was almost no discussion of the fact that the economy is the working people, the middle class, who live here.

You see we could never have bailed out the under-water householders because then they would be getting away with something for free. We can't have that. They need to accept responibilty for their poor financial decisions.

But funneling billions out of the public treasury straight into the Christmas bonuses of the criminals and cronies who manipilated the economy into this disaster, that's just taken for granted. We have to do that to prevent a zombie apocalypse.

Enough is enough. All the rules are fixed make sure Mitt Romney and his 1% buddies win no matter what, and the rest of us lose. It's seriously time to change that.

[Earth_First]

16. pardon me for a second... nobody told her she would have to pay it back?

...and at what cost?

Yes, I know these kids have an incredibly difficult time and there are a mountain of issues that need to be resolved in order to create justice in higher education in this country. However, making comments like not knowing how much this would cost to repay the loans sounds like a fail in financial education, which when I grew up started at home...

[hedgehog]

17. Yeah, what makes these kids think they deserve to go to college

and learn to be scientists, doctors, engineers, nurses, teachers, computer programmers, writers, etc, etc? They should be content working at Mickey D's (free french fries!) . We can bring in all the talent we need on H1-B visas.

[Igel]

21. Absolutely.

They expect society to give them something that's quite expensive for free.

They should have an option to return the offered favor. When they graduate they sign a 20 year contract. The scientists, engineers, doctors, teachers, programmers, writers, etc., get a free education, we get subsidized science, engineering, medicine, teaching, programming, and writing.

They get paid, at government (or private) expense, the salary and benefits at the 30% percentile. Their topics and specialties are assigned by the government to be socially responsible and societally useful. If it's determined that we need more socially responsible teen fiction, the writers write socially responsible teen fiction. We need GPs, the doctors are GPs. We need math teachers in Mississippi, we get math teachers in Mississippi. Society pays for their education, society owns their education and can use it for society's own purpose.

[hedgehog]

18. How many kids are bnorrowing more for school because Mom and Dad

are still paying off their student debt and mortgage instead of saving for tuition?

FWIW - I could finance a college education commuting from home to a state university with a 10 week summer job!

[aikoaiko]

25. If you graduate from a GA high school with a 3.0 GPA, 90% of public college tuition is paid

If you graduate from a GA high school with a 3.8 GPA, 100% of public college tuition is paid

I don't get to brag much about GA here, but we still have a decent scholarship program. What's wrong with the rest of you?

[wordpix]

27. OH Northern is $50K/year? Harvard is about the same