[chairmankaga]

I went to school 2008-2012.

Went in state,

lived at home (commuted 2-2.5~ hours twice a day)

lived cheap (no real spending outside of school bills)

Had scholarships which knocked off 50% of the sticker price.

After all that, and the high interest rates at the time on my initial loans it was north of 200k.

My parents helped with food and rent (living at home) but everything else I took a loan off.

I considered my loans heavily predatory and wish I could have done things differently.

[cpitman]

That's nuts. What state?

Comparing that to my alma mater (Johns Hopkins), a private university, your loans work out to more than my total cost for tuition for four years (2004-2008). Even looking up their current rates, the average four year tuition after student aid is ~130k. Without any student aid, it hits ~$200k.

[Godel_unicode]

Compare that to UMBC right up the road. Full-time tuition for a year is under $12k, plus a few thousand in books and fees leaves you at less than half of your private schools number less financial aid. And everyone gets aid if you're instate in MD.

Go to public schools, live at home, get out with little debt. It's really not a difficult choice, and it gets even easier if you know about the existence of community colleges.

Stop anchoring impressionable kids to ridiculous tuition numbers.

Edit: the highest average in-state tuition is Vermont with just over $17k. If you're willing to go to a state school, you can do it for under $80k for 4 years.

https://research.collegeboard.org/trends/college-pricing/fig...

[cpitman]

Hah, no kidding. For what its worth, I grew up in a family that moved often, and was not technically in-state anywhere. If I had known that my family would also move to Maryland, College Park would have been probably where I would have aimed for. Younger siblings attended there, and with the Maryland scholarships essentially graduated debt free.

[chairmankaga]

Illinois, it was a private school, a semester's cost was 15k.

Granted I should have went to a community college to get my basic classes sorted out.

But being a first generation immigrant and the first to go to college I had little guidance and a high pressure to appease my parents.

At the same time they could not make any payments on my behalf but also did not allow me to go to community college either.

Some would say I should have been smarter, but my parents were sold the "American Dream",

I was forced to foot the bill :)

[toasterlovin]

I realize now that I wasn’t explicit, but implied by “in state” is going to a public university (since those are typically where in state tuition is different than out of state tuition).

[chairmankaga]

Thanks, actually I wasn't aware of that even now!

Really this would have been great to know from my high school advisor to be able to convince my parents to let me consider other types of universities.