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Ya, what happened to the concept of working your way through college?

I may get flamed, but, I think part of the issue is that money is a taboo topic. Families and their students do not ever sit down and have frank discussions about family finances, or talk about how these loans will have to be repaid. Some families tell their kids to reach for their dreams at whatever private university they choose, and never think about how it gets paid for. Getting loans defers the day of reckoning on the money side of things.

Another matter is that so many people are enamored of sending their kids to Harvard and Yale and other expensive private universities, regardless of cost. This ties in with borrowing and not thinking about how these loans ever get repaid. Going to the state university is beneath certain “yuppie” types. My God, they need to go to Harvard, Yale, Stanford, or Princeton, not old State U.

Financially, the best way for most middle class people to go to college is to work their way through. It might take them longer than the standard four years to get a degree, but financially, they will be much better off at the end.

There are also ancillary benefits to working your way through college. If you have to be responsible about studying and your work schedule, you learn some good life lessons along the way. Some college kids have too much time on their hands, and go out drinking and God knows what else when not in class.

Add up the numbers these days for "working your way through college."

While I agree that the best way to go these days is to start out at community college and then finish up at a local, public, or otherwise affordable 4-yr college is the way to go--

Price out that 4-yr college. Have you attended college lately? I was a student in the seventies, and college was practically FREE for me. It was the dorm, books and gas that cost money.

Our son worked his way through Fort Bend community college, then worked his way through the University of Houston. He got a 4.0 at U of H in computer science. He got an internship as a programmer his first year at U of H, that turned into a full-time job when he graduated. He works for that same company 12 years later.

We gave him a free place to live and free food. He did the rest.

The better the private school, the CHEAPER it is for middle class and working class kids, because of more generous grant financial aid. At the high end, private school can be cheaper than public: if your parents make under $100,000 Harvard and Yale are FREE. The big scam is low-end private schools; they suck out every dime and deliver less than a public school at half the after-grant cost. (Honest for-profit schools are a better deal than low-end private: cheaper tuition than private and no misleading airs about prestige.)