Posted on 05/03/2016 1:19:36 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
In early April, my son Dan arrived home from the University of Wisconsin’s Admitted Students Day holding a Wisconsin windshield sticker—and immediately affixed it to our car above his older brother’s University of North Carolina sticker, with a smile I can only describe as vengeful younger-brother joy.
He, too, was going away to a prestigious public university in a storied college town and with a cult-like alumni following.
A couple days earlier I’d photographed him, lanky and beaming, at Bascom Hill, and posted to Facebook: “On Wisconsin! Dan’s a Badger.” Congratulations poured in: 58 “Likes” and 17 comments. He performed the teenage equivalent, recording Snap Stories for his buddies.
All along, he had been clear that he didn’t want to attend a private school because of the price tag: “$70,000 a year! That just makes me angry!” And then he’d laugh at the ridiculousness of those costs. Above average but not a rock star student, he labored through five Advanced Placement classes, including calculus, biology, and statistics; and earned a weighted grade point average well north of 4.0, as well as a very high ACT score.
He’ll graduate next month from a public high school in a New Jersey suburb, one of those places where 98% of the class attends a four-year college. Some go to Ivies or near Ivies, many to prestigious liberal arts colleges, and another group to public research universities. That’s my kids’ peer group. So Dan and I exulted our way through April.
Then, two weeks after we put down the deposit for Wisconsin, we got the financial aid package. We were stunned when he got zero—nada—in aid. Unless you count the $5,500 in federal loans we were offered.
“This must be a mistake,” I thought.
(Excerpt) Read more at time.com ...
Tell him to tell the school he self-identifies as a black lesbian female-to-male transgender. He will have scholarship money up the wazoo.
Agreed. My last one of 3 has been out of college for 5 years and I'm still paying. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I did not go to college.
Tell the school the kid is a crossdresser and is gender fluid. Scholarships will roll in like a tidal wave.
Option B....Go to a local school you can afford.
Smaller, private, liberal arts colleges are desperate for students. My second daughter got a lot of solicitations from them based on her well-above-average verbal PSAT score, even though her math score was pitiful.
They’re offering $10-15 thousand tuition discounts, sight-unseen. One could probably get free tuition if you just paid the room and board!
Ping
Most white families can only get through college these days by having their kids go through 2 years of community college and then transfer to their state university system. That is certainly how it works for white kids in California these days.
I wanted my girls to experience life away from home to help them grow up which they needed so I bit the bullet and sent them to good schools many miles from home.
Financial aid was not an option since my wife and I worked for a living. So I worked harder and paid cash on the barrel head for their college years. My choice. Don’t regret it. But this was 25 years ago. Doubt I could do the same now since all that financial aid has driven costs well beyond any benefit in the majority of students.
I have come to the realization that for most people paying for their. Childrens education is almost impossible. The most important thing is to Insist the student to get a degree where you graduate with a skill. Primarily science and related degrees. 80% of kids graduating from college don’t know anything more than the day they started college. This is a problem.
If he goes to Wisconsin, he should be wary if he majors in history. The history department there has been a hotbed of radicalism since the nineteenth century. Frederick Jackson Turner, Charles A. Beard and William Appleman Williams were on its faculty, and and ultra-leftist Cold War revisionist Gabriel Kolko was one of its products.
Excellent idea, and one I think even upper middle class and rich kids should consider. Too many kids are going straight from high school to four years of drunken debauchery at college. I am all for studying the liberal arts — if you're studying. But these knuckleheads are sleeping through class. Graduate from high school, go to trade school, work for a year or two. THEN choose a college and pay for it via a mix of money you've saved, money from the parents (if the parents have money), and a small, manageable amount of low-interest debt. When you get to college, actually apply yourself, and work during breaks at the job you did before you went to college. You'll have a more meaningful college experience because you'll be sober, you'll be contributing to the cost yourself, and you'll actually be getting the education you are there to get.
well, what you need to do in America is not get married, have your husband work for cash, claim no income, you get all sorts of benefits.
oh, and don’t become a citizen, that’s the other key to this puzzle
then, you will get all the free college you want
pfff, saving money? that’s what rich privileged whitey does
Rent a closet, gain residency, deliver pizzas, accrue the hours and quit whining!
If these people are Freepers, they would get some good advice from the comments on this article. Probably not, but just saying.
Nowadays, you should consider something other than going immediately to college after high school and taking on debt.
There’s the option of community college for two years, then transferring to finish out your bachelor’s degree.
There’s the military option. Serve your country, then have that educational benefit later. The intangible bonus could be that you have much more maturity and life experience after the military, and will apply yourself and get more out of college then.
There’s the option of working for a year or more after high school but before college, to save up money for school.
There’s the option of going to college part time, and working while in school, to defray the costs. Admittedly this way it takes more than the standard four years to graduate. But if you can’t pay for it otherwise, this is an example of people weighing factors and making life choices as to how to reach a goal.
There’s the option of living with mom and dad and not doing the whole “going away to college” experience.
I’m sure there are other choices for young people to consider. But just off the top of my head, these are some things for people to consider.
And overall, college is a major life decision, and there is no one size fits all plan which you have to submit too.
I would also add, that once you are out of college a few years and working, nobody cares what college you went to.
Employers and colleagues will certainly care that you have training and a degree in some field, but where you got that degree just doesn’t matter when you are in the “real world” and working. So the idea that you should go to some “prestige” school is something that just doesn’t benefit you longer term.
One of my daughters, some years ago, had a National Merit Scholarship. Straight A’s at an excellent HS. But she still got few scholarship offers from colleges that said they were dying to have her.
At Dartmouth, they offered her only a very small scholarship, although three American Indian girls flown up from Oklahoma whom she met there were offered full scholarships, room & board. (They chose not to go—didn’t like the place.)
She ended up going to UNH, where she got an excellent education and a top-line job after graduating.
One funny story—she was also accepted at Williams College, but with no scholarship. Their admissions director called our house and I happened to answer the phone. He was shocked, shocked, that she turned them down. Top school in the country! he said. I pointed out that we could hardly afford the place without a scholarship. He finally hung up—shocked, shocked, couldn’t believe it, a National Merit Scholar turning down an offer from Williams!
You’ve got that right-go to school in your own area and live at home, if possible-or at least off campus-it is cheaper. Get a full time job, save the money all summer to pay your tuition, drop back to part-time when school starts-don’t borrow money for school-especially not from a source the “guidance counselors” recommend-my cub did that to get her masters-she has a degree useless in any states but Cali, Oregon or Washington, a job at a nursery, and tens of thousands of student loans due that she can’t pay...
First and foremost, don’t apply to a school you can’t afford on your own-they don’t provide any better education than one you can...
My recommendation is for her to vote for Bernie. He promises “Free” college for all.
“CC looks horrible on a resume.” Not if you go to a good four year college after you complete CC.
I won't address your 80% figure, but college is like anything else. You get out of it what you put into it. A few people seem to think that their job is just to show up (often late) and wait for someone to unscrew their heads and pour knowledge into them. There are other people who spend their lives learning, both in and out of school. College was good for me.
The cost of a college education began to skyrocket the moment FedGov began subsidizing it and securing loans for it. Think about it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.