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I cannot afford to go back to engineering school

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Re: I cannot afford to go back to engineering school

#121

Post by anologwintermut »

epistasis wrote: post #86
anologwintermut wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The flip side to this is I know someone who went through the legal steps to have their parents money not be counted as theirs and got huge scholarships. Trick: Their parents still supported him and were worth about 100 million. So he got a nice Mercedes(2 actually, he crashed one) and cheap college. It's a flawed system, but simply not counting your parents money is an even more flawed system.

IMHO, it's far more of an error that those without privilege/money are denied access to education than those with privilege/money get an undeserved benefit. This doesn't just affect the individual, it affects all of us who are trying to hire good engineers. The smaller the number of people that are allowed to attempt an engineering degree, the fewer that will earn them. Every single potential engineer that is prevent…

I'd agree, except that most financial aid is zero sum (in terms of scholarships/grants). If you don't get it, someone else will who also might become an engineer. Someone gets screwed either way if your parents really won't support you. But if they were lying, then you go to college anyway.

Re: I cannot afford to go back to engineering school

#122

Post by superuser2 »

bane wrote: post #109
hga wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there still a screw case for "kids from wealthier families" when the families refuse to help? At least during the '80s, I was told I was ineligible for any financial aid.

Declare yourself independent, move out, get a part-time job, remove yourself as a dependent from your parents taxes, etc. etc. Now you are the income source for your own education expenses, and if you don't make that much money should be eligible for all kinds of wonderful tuition assistance programs. If the school asks, just say you have a terrible relationship with your parents and are estranged from them.

They've thought of that. Even emancipated children are not considered financially independent for aid purposes until the age of 25. The only exception is if you can provide documentation of child abuse - police reports, DCF files, etc. Estrangement is not enough.

Even a noncustodial parent you've never met is expected to make the same sacrifice as your custodial parent.

Re: I cannot afford to go back to engineering school

#123

Post by jloughry »

cinquemb wrote: post #43

I have a feeling that there are going to be more and more stories like this. Especially with 60% of Fed student loans non performant, interest rates increasing, and the cost to acquire the piece of paper (and the "college experience") increasing. But Sallie Mae would have you think otherwise when their split goes through on wall st. I have a feeling someone is going to get rich off of CDS backed by securities on stud…

I keep hearing that the US student loan situation is a 'bubble' that is going to burst soon. Fine, but...what will that look like when it happens? I've read Michael Lewis's books---if you haven't, do!---and consequently I think I understand what happened during the mortgage crisis, and before that, M&A fever. But what would a student loan default crisis look like? Lenders can't exactly foreclose on college degrees. What might take the place of vacant houses in a student loan default crisis?

Seriously, I would welcome any speculative economic analysis here.

Re: I cannot afford to go back to engineering school

#124

Post by muzz »

ohazi wrote: post #104
muzz wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Retirement accounts don't affect financial aid, they are not even asked for on the FAFSA. Only if they had savings in a non-retirement account-- where they could use it for things other than retirement-- it would affect your financial aid.

This annoys the hell out of me. "Retirement account" here is a tax deferred account like a 401k or an IRA, right? There are limits to how much you can put into accounts like these, and in today's world it can be difficult to adequately fund a comfortable retirement on these savings alone. If you make a modest income but are careful about your spending, it's not unreasonable to have leftover after-tax money that you c…

Yes, 401k, IRA, etc.

But your concern of their limitations applies to so few people.

Roughly 30% of people have less than $1000 saved for retirement, in any kind of account [1]

Roughly 55% of people have less than $25K saved, in any kind of account

The 401k personal contribution limit is $17,500 this year, and if someone had a 50% match form their company, they could top that in just ONE single year.

[1] page 18, 19: http://www.pacificlife.com/NR/rdonlyres/BCCBDD57-93B9-4B5F-8...

Re: I cannot afford to go back to engineering school

#125

Post by dorian-graph »

NamTaf wrote: post #101

The US university loan system is fucked. We have a government-run loan scheme called HECS. You defer your university fees throughout the duration of your studies, apparently no matter how long they last. The programme is not means tested at all, so it is available for every single domestic student studying uni here, no matter what. That loan is then paid back only once you start earning more than a threshold amount o…

Yup, HECS is wonderful. I'm a current engineering student and it's offloaded a major concern from my mind about university. University used to be free in Australia a few decades ago, I believe.

I think there IS a limit on how long studies go. When I changed degrees I remember one of the Centrelink mentioning something graduation date and if it's within a range—I should check. Also, they've proposed to remove the HECS-HELP discounts[1].

[1]: http://studyassist.gov.au/sites/studyassist/news/pages/chang...

Re: I cannot afford to go back to engineering school

#126

Post by muzz »

superuser2 wrote: post #95
muzz wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Retirement accounts don't affect financial aid, they are not even asked for on the FAFSA. Only if they had savings in a non-retirement account-- where they could use it for things other than retirement-- it would affect your financial aid.

Many private schools (including UChicago) supplement FAFSA with CollegeBoard's CSS PROFILE, which is more encompassing and looks straight through retirement savings, business assets, trusts, and everything else. My dad is a CPA and it took him several days to fill it out. He said it was very clearly designed by experts who are very good at finding hidden assets. Before someone turns that into an argument for state sc…

40% of UC Berkeley undergraduates pay $0 tuition, thanks to grants and scholarships:

http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2013/04/18/campus-announces-2...

Re: I cannot afford to go back to engineering school

#127

Post by hga »

jloughry wrote: post #123
cinquemb wrote: post #43

I have a feeling that there are going to be more and more stories like this. Especially with 60% of Fed student loans non performant, interest rates increasing, and the cost to acquire the piece of paper (and the "college experience") increasing. But Sallie Mae would have you think otherwise when their split goes through on wall st. I have a feeling someone is going to get rich off of CDS backed by securities on stud…

I keep hearing that the US student loan situation is a 'bubble' that is going to burst soon. Fine, but...what will that look like when it happens? I've read Michael Lewis's books---if you haven't, do!---and consequently I think I understand what happened during the mortgage crisis, and before that, M&A fever. But what would a student loan default crisis look like? Lenders can't exactly foreclose on college degrees. W…

What potentially happens is too many people stop playing the game, or the game many schools require.

Harvard and MIT will be fine, but the schools that aren't worth $60K/year, or less for e.g. higher tier state schools other than UC Berkeley, are likely to see enrollment crashing. That's starting to happen with law schools.

Re: I cannot afford to go back to engineering school

#128

Post by anologwintermut »

NamTaf wrote: post #101

The US university loan system is fucked. We have a government-run loan scheme called HECS. You defer your university fees throughout the duration of your studies, apparently no matter how long they last. The programme is not means tested at all, so it is available for every single domestic student studying uni here, no matter what. That loan is then paid back only once you start earning more than a threshold amount o…

HECS is nice, I knew a number of Aussie engineers at Microsoft who got a good education and as you said, fled the country.

Low interest loans are not the worst idea if people actually stop to ask themselves if their major will provide the enough income to pay them back. They avoid the flee the jurisdiction problem an the waste money on a useless major problem.

Its reasonably rational to pay the money to go to Stanford for CS even if you pair full freight. It's probably not economically rational to do so for sociology.

The problem of course, in the US, is that no one asked themselves if they could afford to pay back the loans given what they intended to do. Its some mass collective delusion.

The other problem, is that every time they up the amount for federal student loans, universities up their tuition to match.

Re: I cannot afford to go back to engineering school

#129

Post by fragsworth »

Another stupid thing is you're allowed to write off your education expenses from your taxable income, but only in the same year that you made the expenses. The tax deductions can't get carried over into future years.

This effectively means almost everyone who gets loans for their education pays full taxes on the money they used on that education. But if you have well-to-do parents pay for your education, they get to write the expenses off and pay much less in taxes during your college years.

It's a situation where wealthier people get a significant discount just for being wealthy, and there's really no social benefit to having it be this way.

Re: I cannot afford to go back to engineering school

#130

Post by hga »

superuser2 wrote: post #122
bane wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Declare yourself independent, move out, get a part-time job, remove yourself as a dependent from your parents taxes, etc. etc. Now you are the income source for your own education expenses, and if you don't make that much money should be eligible for all kinds of wonderful tuition assistance programs. If the school asks, just say you have a terrible relationship with your parents and are estranged from them.

They've thought of that. Even emancipated children are not considered financially independent for aid purposes until the age of 25. The only exception is if you can provide documentation of child abuse - police reports, DCF files, etc. Estrangement is not enough. Even a noncustodial parent you've never met is expected to make the same sacrifice as your custodial parent.

At my school, I once worked with an administrator who helped with the admissions process (every application is read by a minimum of two people, at least back then), and she had her hands on a lot of data, including a big set of accepted students. We looked through them and noted a couple of things: a disproportionate number were first born (like me) or only children, and no admits she looked at were from broken families. She also got a feel for that based on people asking about going to the university in her department, she hears a lot of stories, arranges and gives lots of tours, etc. Hmmm, now that I think about it I cannot remember a single student I knew who came from a broken home.

Basically, it appears that once parents divorce, at least one parent is not willing to pay what the College Board/the school expects, and that's game over.

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