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[Gailete]

I really do understand what you are saying Steve, I just think with trying that many students can get out of college owing far less than what many do, simply by only taking loans for the essentials. Not money for wants, but needs. Just like most of us here must do daily. What better time to learn that than in college as it is a step up into adulthood for many kids that weren't prepared for adulthood in their home prior to college.

I have heard parents talk about their kids going to college. A woman I know has multiple kids in school. As I heard her talking one day when school was letting out for the year that it would take TWO van loads to get son and his paraphernalia home for the summer, so two round trips just to get him home and at least one for the daughter. My mom's contribution to getting me to college and back was driving me to the bus station about 40 miles away. Some of the wealthier kids sent a trunk of stuff on the train to college. Everything I owned I had with me for the most part on the bus I traveled in. What are considered 'necessities' these days wouldn't even have been on a wants list when I was in college (I was in college before the advent of credit cards, microwave ovens, flat screen TVs, etc.). Some of the kids had electric kettles and if one had a roommate with a popcorn maker you were living in the lap of luxury! I see news reports every year of students heading for college with so many brand new electronic appliances it baffles me – and I never see a popcorn maker or electric kettle. Where do they put them all? College dorm rooms must have really changed is all I can think.

College and costs have very much changed and it has put a lot of people in a pickle as they have to start their adult life with a huge debt hanging over their head for years. With more work on their part, and not giving into every want they come across, those debts would be far less onerous.

[disneysteve]

College and costs have very much changed and it has put a lot of people in a pickle as they have to start their adult life with a huge debt hanging over their head for years. With more work on their part, and not giving into every want they come across, those debts would be far less onerous.

It would be really interesting to see stats on how much of the average student's debt is from actual school expenses and how much is from personal spending that could have been trimmed or eliminated. My suspicion is that the vast majority of the debt is from school itself.

I'm sure there are things kids could be doing to spend less but I don't think it adds up to more than a few thousand dollars over the course of 4 years. Most of the stuff filling the car when we move our daughter in and out was one-time purchases: refrigerator, laptop (which she uses year-round), printer, fan (dorm isn't air conditioned), under-bed boxes, etc. Of course, we still tend toward the frugal side so I'm sure there are kids bringing stuff that isn't on our list.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

Gailete, I just think that before it was easier to work and afford college. Now every stat says it's gone up faster than inflation and way faster than minimum wage. So it's not the same economics to assume every kid can work and afford school working anymore. It hasn't been a proportional rise of costs to income.

That's not to say kids aren't more wasteful. They probably are. There is more to waste money on. BUT to say that I worked and it's just kids aren't working hard enough is not the story. It just can't be when you consider that the minimum wage is $7 and from a $3k/year tuition to now 3x that $12k/year at a public university but the minimum wage hasn't tripled seems a little unfair.

Plus we talk about healthcare and health insurance premiums going up way more than the average wage increase. So why can't college have done the same?

[Gailete]

I do not have the answers, But of even the 'frugal' things that Steve listed off as needing to take with his daughter to college, none of those came into our dorms when going to college and no, we had no AC. In the 4 years I was there, only one student that I knew of was allowed a fridge in her room and she was diabetic and needed it to keep her insulin chilled and perhaps orange juice for BS dips. The rest of us waited until cold weather to come along and kept what foods we needed chilled in the window. Usually this was chunks of cheese my roommate had.

I am very aware that things are much different now! I am not proposing that all kids all work their way through college, but one of the things that I have seen the most of on this forum that is causing many of the posters the most stress is their student loans that seem to go on indefinitely. Even if they had been able to cut back $1000 a year that would be $4000 less in student loans they would be struggling with.

It would take a lot of work and great determination to get through college without walking away with students loans at the end. A lot of families no longer practice frugality of any sort. They just charge as they go and are used to living with a certain standard of comfort and expect to live that way, if not better in college.

I just find it interesting why so many here seem to just throw up their hands and seem helpless against the cost of college when everything else that they spend money on is negotiable. Their mortgage is too high then they may be advised to sell their house, car too expensive sell it and get something cheaper and on and on. All I propose is serious consideration of the costs and expenses and how to keep things cheaper for college bound kids in whatever ways are possible. This is my last post on the topic of college costs. I am very aware that things have changed over the years. I was a rare one when I went to college and would most likely be a rare one yet again as I have never gone with the regular flow of things. Perhaps there should be a whole thread on cost saving measures for parents with kids heading off to college to help all know some cheaper ways to do things and to spare their kids as much in student loans as possible.

[disneysteve]

In the 4 years I was there, only one student that I knew of was allowed a fridge in her room and she was diabetic and needed it to keep her insulin chilled and perhaps orange juice for BS dips. The rest of us waited until cold weather to come along and kept what foods we needed chilled in the window. Usually this was chunks of cheese my roommate had.

I find that really hard to believe. I started college just a few years after you finished and I don't think there was a single student who didn't have a fridge in his/her room. I will say that many of them rented their fridges, which was a waste, because it was cheaper to buy one than to rent one for a year. We bought mine, of course, and I used it all 4 years and then sold it to an underclassman before I graduated, so the total cost to us was under $50 for the 4 years.

I understand your point, but I do think you are taking things to an unreasonable extreme with examples like this. If my daughter didn't have a fridge, we'd be spending far more money because she'd have to buy stuff daily at convenience store prices rather than being able to stock up at the supermarket. The $100 we paid for her fridge (which we will sell next year when she graduates) has saved us many times that much.

[Gailete]

I find that really hard to believe.

Whether you believe it or not, it is the truth. Why would I lie about that? Our dorm rooms were so small no one would have had room for a fridge anyhow. What may sound to you as extreme is what was my life during my college years. Personal sized microwaves had not yet been invented, no one but rich people has a credit card, and many things that are considered necessities now weren't even wants back then since they hadn't been invented. I graduated 40 years ago last month. It is amazing what has come into being in the last few years.

All I have been trying to say and have repeated it, is there are ways to make your college experience less expensive if you look for them. Granted you may still need to take out loans, but a smaller loan is better than a bigger one, even if only a couple thousand saved a year. Even if only one thousand dollars less for 4 years total.

I KNOW the stress that loans cause those that have taken them out. My youngest son just got his gone this past year with a gift from my mother for the last thousand. My other son as far as I know is still paying on his and in his situation, I know that he would sign up for enough classes so that he could get a loan, and then use it for regular living expenses for himself and his first wife. His first wife was severely mentally ill, at one point with she had asked him to buy oatmeal, he did. He found it the next day in the garbage unopened, so he took it out and the next day he found it in the garbage but she had opened it and dumped it so no hope of rescuing it - completely wasted money (that was just one of the few things he would share that she did during those years). So even though working 2-3 jobs and taking classes, he had a wife that wouldn't get a job, nor did she do any housework or meals , or anything to save him money. While he was trying to make ends meet and she was doing everything in her power to cost him money. So now he and his second wife are still paying back for that first fiasco marriage and the school loans that were taken out. I believe that other than those loans and his mortgage he has no other bills from credit cards or loans. At this point he has been paying for a long time on those student loans. Granted that wasn't what student loans are traditionally meant for, but I'm sure that he wasn't the only one using his loan money in a foolish manner.

[disneysteve]

Whether you believe it or not, it is the truth. Why would I lie about that? Our dorm rooms were so small no one would have had room for a fridge anyhow.

Gailete, I'm sorry. I didn't mean that as "I don't believe you" but rather as "I'm shocked to hear that." To hear that from 1977 to 1982 dorm fridges went from virtually non-existent to being in every single room surprised me.

All I have been trying to say and have repeated it, is there are ways to make your college experience less expensive if you look for them. Granted you may still need to take out loans, but a smaller loan is better than a bigger one, even if only a couple thousand saved a year. Even if only one thousand dollars less for 4 years total.

I completely agree with all of this. No argument here at all. Sorry if I seemed like I was debating that point.

[Gailete]

I went to a very small private college that from my freshman year when I knew every single student, faculty and staff member (working in the library helps immensely with that) to our student body doubling, and a huge building project started and completed in four years. When I graduated I was the only female that had been there on campus four years straight. Many of the girls came freshman year, stopped to go to 2 year nursing programs and then came back and finished their degree, with others taking a year off to earn more money. I wish I had thought about the possibility of doing nursing school then, but I would have still been in the quandary of no money for school. My mom and stepdad on disability, I didn't drive yet so had no way to go back and forth to work or classes. Lots of stumbling blocks in the way, so me staying on in college was for me the best plan. During that time I even had the opportunity to go to Colombia for 7 weeks thanks to gifts from many friends who helped send me. I completely missed the bicentennial and had no clue who this Jimmy Carter was that I saw in the Spanish newspapers. One of my summer jobs was working at a camp in the boonies in British Columbia and one day one of the campers showed up and asked me if I was American and did I know that my president had resigned? Thus I found out about Richard Nixon and Watergate. No one could ever, even if they tried, have a duplicate of my 4 college years! Nor would most of them want to I suppose, but still some of the best years of my life. Talk about getting an education!

I got home from college with $60 in my pocket, exhausted after a 48 hour bus ride and my mother never once said "why not take a few days or a week to get some rest". I was job hunting the Monday after I got back and found a part time job on Thursday and found a friend of my mom's close to the job that would allow me to room and board with them. A mile walk each way daily. I literally never had the choices some get to make. I'm sure that if your daughter comes home after graduating college ready to drop, you would insist on her getting some rest prior to anything else. If I had a kid coming home from college tomorrow, I would as well. I would do plenty of things differently, but I would still expect frugality. It may not have been school loans but I know what it feels like to be buried in debt.

[disneysteve]

Gailete, if nothing else, you certainly have some really interesting life experience stories to tell. Sorry you missed the Bicentennial though. That was a fun time, or at least it was for me because I lived in Philadelphia at the time which was kind of the center of much of the celebration. I'm not sure what it was like in other parts of the country.

I also went to a small private college so I'm familiar with the knowing every student and faculty member phenomenon. It wasn't unusual for a professor to invite students to their home for dinner. Our theater cast parties were always held at our director's home, for example.

[Gailete]

Yes lots of stories. My favorite being one weekend it got so cold and with the wind the pipes in our dorms froze and the only way to use the bathroom was to bundle up and go to the nearest main building. So when I heard what the wind-chill factor was I thought it was the perfect opportunity to do something that most could never beat. Bundled up and took a walk. The wind-chill factor of -128F! I thought I had managed unscathed until about three weeks later the tip of one ear was itchy. Scratched and away came a bunch of dead skin cells that had apparently gotten frozen. I enjoyed cheap fun when I found it and to this day I haven't met anyone else that did such a stupid thing - you know how dumb college kids can be!

[LivingAlmostLarge]

I've heard a lot of poor college stories. But even many of these people discuss how college has seemed to grow faster than wages when they were or are trying to save for their children. Grants don't cover everything the way it used to. Before it was totally possible to work part-time during school and cover your expenses. It's not now. Even living at home it's not. My mom paid for all her college and helped her family working full time. She says no way no could she do that. So it's not the same financial situation.

[disneysteve]

I've heard a lot of poor college stories. But even many of these people discuss how college has seemed to grow faster than wages when they were or are trying to save for their children.

The college inflation rate isn't a new phenomenon.

I was in college 1982-1986.

Year one was $7,600.
Year four was $10,300.

That's a 36% increase in 4 years. I can assure you that wages did not go up by 36%. So even people who were working their way through freshman year were struggling and taking out bigger loans by senior year, and that was 30 years ago. The situation has only steadily worsened since then.

[Jluke]

it amazes (and disgusts) me to see what my college would cost now...

95-99: was in the low 20k's
2017: Tuition is 50k (w/o financial aid); tuition with room and board is 65k.