I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams • Hacker News Board

Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#431

Post by pnathan » Sat, Dec 28, 2019, 6:53 AM UTC

variaga wrote: post #201

pnathan wrote: post #112

> While other parents cheerfully promise that “if you get in, we’ll figure out the money part,” That is literally the worst mindset to go in to this about. I profoundly want to see college be free for all, and debt zeroed out. Failing that rather utopian vision, the smart bet is to get a degree that you can pay off in under 10 years without a miracle. I plan to save up enough to help my kid out, which might well invo…

When I was applying to colleges (in the 90's), my parents told me that: (a) If I applied and was accepted at the local state University, they would pay the full costs for me to attend there. (at the time, ~$10K/yr) (b) If I was additionally accepted to any other school and decided to go there, they would still pay _me_ the costs of attending the state school, and I would be responsible for for making up any differenc…

it's not a bad deal! The cost I expect for my kid at a state school for a 4 year school is ~~~~150K, given typical cost increases.

I'm not averse to giving him enough debt to attend to his finances with care - say, 20-30K in today's dollars. But I'm not saddling him with debt to last into his 30s. I lived that. It killed a great deal of opportunity for me.

I expect I will probably buy 90% or so of the Washington state GET program (somewhat complicated), and let him sort out the other 10%.

Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#432

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Dec 28, 2019, 8:13 AM UTC

snowwrestler wrote: post #281

rayiner wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Looks like a major redistribution of wealth, from taxpayers to educational institutions. :-/ This is my surprised face. This is my beef with free college. It's a huge amount of public money going to benefit people who don't need it, all for an extremely tenuous promise of upward mobility. Kids growing up in real urban poverty aren't going to college, tuition-free or not. The hurdles keeping them from upward mobilit…

This might come as a shock, but AOC is a member of Congress now. (It's silly to judge the value of a college education by the jobs that people get the first few years after college.)

[deleted]

Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#433

Post by 8bitsrule » Sat, Dec 28, 2019, 9:09 AM UTC

criddell wrote: post #54

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m pretty sympathetic to the perspective that the solution is not dealing with it. “I want to go to art school” is at the same level as “I want a pony” or “I’m gonna marry a rich girl”; it’s not originally intended as a serious life plan, and you’ll only start to see it as one if the people around you encourage it.

I don't see anything wrong with going to school for an education rather than training. Frankly, I wish there were more kids working on a liberal and fine arts education. It's one of the reasons I'm a big fan of the free-college-for-all plans being pushed by some politicians.

I don't either. Most of the life-long value I got from college was not in the concentrations I was required to choose from. The real value was in the broad exposure to many disciplines, endeavors and POVs. Especially important in that were the hundreds of talented people I got to talk with ... a valuable extracurricular available at many schools.

Many people find satisfaction in work unrelated to what they thought they wanted when they were 18-20. Maybe they discovered other options they weren't aware of. Maybe their prospective specialities disappeared over time, maybe their values changed as they matured. A whole person is about more than income or ability to match some arbitrary standard.

In short noone should assume they know what an 18-20 yo is going to wind up doing (even if all goes well in their life). Nor do they (let alone their unfocussed 'advisors') know what occupations will stick around. A huge investment and a 4-year degree seems unwise and un-called for at this point. Never mind what 'tradition' says. Unless you're looking to be an academic, two years at first seems more reasonable. Less debt, less pressure. Get started, go try yourself in the crucible.

Five years later, that vagueness has been clarified by life experiences. At that point, the wisdom of a big investment might make more sense. 25 can be a lot more focussed than 20.

Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#434

Post by sybarita » Sat, Dec 28, 2019, 9:37 AM UTC

swiley wrote: post #285

Grakel wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Theatre Professor here. Do not let your kids go to school for acting. Oh, he or she is perfect looking and incredibly talented? Great, they don't need a degree in acting. Go to school in New York, Chicago, or LA, and audition between classes in a real degree. Now if they want to study design and tech, go nuts. The amount of work out there is incredible, there is just so much content being consumed.

I kind of regret doing CS instead of music. Maybe if I had done something more art focused the competition wouldn't have been so bad and I'd probably still have a girlfriend, which is more important to me personally than money.

LOL

Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#435

Post by tim333 » Sat, Dec 28, 2019, 10:35 AM UTC

pnathan wrote: post #112

> While other parents cheerfully promise that “if you get in, we’ll figure out the money part,” That is literally the worst mindset to go in to this about. I profoundly want to see college be free for all, and debt zeroed out. Failing that rather utopian vision, the smart bet is to get a degree that you can pay off in under 10 years without a miracle. I plan to save up enough to help my kid out, which might well invo…

>Failing that rather utopian vision

When I went to university in the UK in 1983 university was free, both undergraduate and graduate, there was a means tested grant for living expenses and student debt wasn't really a thing. So it's possible. On the downside there was only so much money from tax hence only about 15% of the people got to do undergrad degrees and postgrad was maybe 10% of that.

Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#436

Post by marcus_holmes » Sat, Dec 28, 2019, 10:35 AM UTC

loopdedoo wrote: post #299

marcus_holmes wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does intelligence correlate to either education or wealth? I didn't think it did...

Intelligence strongly correlated with education (~0.5), and adult intelligence is mostly determined by genetics. https://academic.oup.com/ije/article/39/5/1362/802787 The correlation between intelligence and income also substantial, but seemingly not quite as strong. The correlation between intelligence and wealth is weaker still. https://www.bcaresearch.com/images/Peter_PPT_presentation%20... https://www.sciencedire…

interesting, thanks for the info. I've met some complete idiots with PhD's, some utter morons with huge incomes, and some geniuses who didn't complete high school. But I guess that's not the normal perception.

Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#437

Post by oarabbus_ » Sat, Dec 28, 2019, 10:49 AM UTC

JohnBooty wrote: post #350

oarabbus_ wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, unless you're going to Stanford, Duke, or an Ivy League (or maybe USC or $REGIONALLY_RENOWNED_SCHOOL), the networking is definitely not worth the price tag.

What you've written is largely hogwash. Most fields are not so competitive that you need a degree from an A-list school simply to get your foot into the door. But you will need to get your foot into the door. Several or perhaps many doors throughout your career. Your network, even if it is not a blue-chip list of Ivy League studs and studettes, can help greatly. Particularly with your first position. I went to a rath…

I went to a public university and the price tag was rather reasonable compared to the typical 200k+ of a private school.

Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#438

Post by pw » Sat, Dec 28, 2019, 11:15 AM UTC

lsc wrote: post #429

hajile wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

College doesn't make someone smart. College doesn't make someone choose to be productive. The decisions that lead to being smart and productive start early in childhood. Unfortunately, dollars spent on early education don't seem to have much of a correlation with success later in life.

So, I think about this a lot. I know a lot of really good sysadmins with no education; like of the people I consider really good sysadmins, close to half might not have degrees, and this is one of the reasons I equate my job to the trades. (I mean, along with the fact that our job is to create and maintain infrastructure so that other people can work) I know a fair number of software engineers with no formal educatio…

It's a tangent, but I'd love to hear more about your decision to pursue the degree at nau.edu.

Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#439

Post by ohyes » Sat, Dec 28, 2019, 12:41 PM UTC

I feel that this is a disingenuous approach to the situation that the parents have put their children in.

They put a very positive spin on having spent the money that should have gone to their child’s college tuition.

Braces are a cliche, and cost an absolute max of 10k, a drop in the bucket compared to 300k worth of tuition. These people did not budget for children at all and probably (like everyone else) spent the money on stuff they don’t actually need.

You encourage your child to do well in school and excel at something, but suddenly when the bill comes due it is their responsibility to pay for whatever you’ve encouraged them in, for the rest of their adult lives.

I’m trying to say there’s a big financial literacy issue coming from the parents, not the children (although maybe also the children), and the culture around it is to blame everyone but the parents and saddle the child with indentured servant levels of debt... to pay for stuff the parents wanted at the time. (The 529 is basically free money! How did you not use it?)

These parents do make enough money for them to have saved for this, they just didn’t.

If they didn’t make enough, financial aid probably would have been there. (You can apply somewhere, get in and see what type of financial aid package they give you, then reject because the cost is too high). Schools with better endowments tend to have better aid packages.

To me, this is someone justifying 20 years of their own bad financial decisions.

Everyone is obsessed with the cost of college being “worth it” or send their kids into the life of backbreaking work trade school entails.

Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#440

Post by learc83 » Sat, Dec 28, 2019, 2:22 PM UTC

pnathan wrote: post #428

learc83 wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Public student loans have income based repayment. Assuming you go to a state school and don't live on campus, the debt isn't a big deal. And if you get into very top tier private school, the networking alone is definitely worth it.

> Public student loans have income based repayment. Assuming you go to a state school and don't live on campus, the debt isn't a big deal. only for very specific programs, doing very specific work. I looked into it. it's not a general program - at least, when I was dealing with my 10s of thousands of dollars..

Nope. Income based repayment is available for all federal student loans.

There's a limit of $30k for dependent students and $60k fo independent students. For direct federal undergrad loans in general, not for income based repayment.