Posted on 05/12/2012 7:26:12 PM PDT by Lorianne
Kelsey Griffith graduates on Sunday from Ohio Northern University. To start paying off her $120,000 in student debt, she is already working two restaurant jobs and will soon give up her apartment here to live with her parents. Her mother, who co-signed on the loans, is taking out a life insurance policy on her daughter.
“If anything ever happened, God forbid, that is my debt also,” said Ms. Griffith’s mother, Marlene Griffith.
Ms. Griffith, 23, wouldn’t seem a perfect financial fit for a college that costs nearly $50,000 a year. Her father, a paramedic, and mother, a preschool teacher, have modest incomes, and she has four sisters. But when she visited Ohio Northern, she was won over by faculty and admissions staff members who urge students to pursue their dreams rather than obsess on the sticker price.
“As an 18-year-old, it sounded like a good fit to me, and the school really sold it,” said Ms. Griffith, a marketing major. “I knew a private school would cost a lot of money. But when I graduate, I’m going to owe like $900 a month. No one told me that.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
$200,000 down the drain for an "education" and she's still as dumb as a bag of hammers.
College campuses are full of em.
I’m thankful that I graduated from Undergrad with no debt thanks to the good graces of my parents. I don’t know what I would do if I had $30,000+ debt.
It would be crippling.
ONU costs nearly 50 grand a year???
That’s a lot of money to spend on a no-name school!
What a crock!
Any loan papers I've ever signed were crystal clear on the terms. Interest rate, length of contract and monthly payments.
But when she visited Ohio Northern, she was won over by faculty and admissions staff members who urge students to pursue their dreams rather than obsess on the sticker price.
Do these people sell used cars on the side?
An 18 year old doesn’t understand that loans have to be repaid, it’s just “free money”.
I’m not kidding. It’s that scary.
Only if their parent’s didn’t teach them.
These kids have been sold on the BS that they simply cannot live without a college education.
The Colleges helped sell that crap and then they took advantage of the poor dumb suckers and jammed the cost down their throats.
This country still needs mechanics, plumbers electricians and many other trades that can earn people more money than college if they become good at it.
Colleges took advantage of the kids, raised their prices and then raised them again when the government started giving out easy money.
This is what higher education is in America today, Crooks , shysters, con Men and scam artists. They told the kids they couldn’t make it in life without college and then the kids come out with no jobs and their hopes shattered, and loaded with debt, working as waitress’s, which they could have done without the friggin sorry assed sheepskin.
My advice is if you go to college, educate yourself to what courses will give you a hand up to a career, or don’t go at all. Educate yourself before you educate yourself.Don’t let these shysters talk you into debt.
SHE should take the LSAT and graduate Law School...
wasn’t it AL Capone who said ‘a lawyer can steal more money with a briefcase than a mobster with a gun..and he dont have a to a go ta jail a for it’?
‘Mamma mia che bella idea’!
Apparently, only a minority know how to basic finance works.
Scary.
And the trend continues - a thousand dollars each year for unnecessary health insurance. Health insurance required of all students, charged to the student account and included in the tuition bill.
Would you ever imagine financing insurance? Especially to a loan that can never be discharged through bankruptcy? It is incredibly stupid that this practice has become so widespread - though at least ONU isn’t gouging as much as some other colleges on the insurance bill. The same coverage at other universities can run as much as twice that bill.
The hard question that every 17 year old prospective college student should ask (but never does):
“How long will it take my “increased earning potential” with a degree to pay off my student loans?”
It may very well be that a college education is revenue-negative.
This has all the makings of the housing bubble — people taking out loans to get something they can’t afford, can’t manage, and don’t deserve.
Um... I am wondering what exactly the word ‘loan’ means to this girl in the article.
Sweetums, it means you have to pay it back, usually with interest. Sorry you fell for their gushing all over you but they aren’t the ones who were going to have to pay back the money, you were. Actually, they wanted you to pay THEM. Matter of fact, you looked like someone who would qualify for the money and were probably an easy mark for these people who swooned all over you.
And a private school? Sheesh!. I attended a private school for two semesters full time and one part time. I paid cash for the tuition and worked full time the entire duration.
And stop with the bull that no one told you how much you would have to pay back. This is detailed when you get the loan and no doubt you thought it would be a snap to make those payments, (which by the way, are the cost of a house to many Americans) as upon graduation you would be offered a VP position with a Fortune 500 company and get a corner office, full benefits and a BMW.
Switching gears now - when I hear of your fellow students in CA and GA protesting in favor of illegals getting free or in-state tuition (which we all know won’t be paid back) and getting to live here off of taxpayers backs, just wait until you have to pay taxes on top of your tuition to support these illegal aliens.
Poor dear is a victim of the tricky admissions staff./s/
My sons were given the choice: We help and they help and together we pay for it as we go. If they do debt, we are out of the deal. They both got through without debt, but they had to work hard.
“only a basic minority knows..”
That is the sad truth. I talked to a friend whose daughter is wanting a divorce. Leaving with THREE kids. But not to worry, she found a job making 15,000 a year.
She don’t get it.
“Marketing Major?” Is that even useful?
Eliminate Department of Education, get the Feds out of education and I guarantee tuition/education costs would go down. And, there would be less indoctrination in liberal thought/lunacy.
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