BUT. I don’t think the larger issue is being treated all that fairly. I am also going to be in 6 figures worth of debt when I graduate. But I made that choice consciously and I don’t blame the government or anyone else for it. And I have no sympathy for those who go into 6 figures worth of debt during undergrad. It was their choice. I made the choice of going to a tuition free state university. All of you Harvard and NYU people can look down an me for the rest of your lives, but you can’t simultaneously bitch about how unfair it was that you had to pay over 100 grand for the opportunity to do so.

Clearly parents are partly to blame, too, for not setting clear limits on how much they are willing to financially bail their kids out. Getting money from parents (for basic needs, not luxuries) in itself isn’t bad, but having daddy and mommy to happily bail you out from every mistake you make isn’t exactly healthy and does lead to serious entitilement issues. And the problem is that often others feel a need to adopt a similar outlook just to keep up and not become pariahs..

Frankly, I think the article is flat out wrong on its assertion that parents are sitting there, ready willing and able to bail out little Dick and Jane for their bad judgment. Does it happen? Sure. I went to private school all the way through high school and saw it, but I think the phenomenon is a lot less common than the article makes it sound. There are parents who can afford it and who do it, but in my experience, that’s the exception rather than the rule.

Zuzu said:

Oh, this was another issue in law school. Seems that, at least when I was in law school, professional schools didn’t follow the same rules for financial aid that other graduate programs did. So on your FAFSA, you had to provide your parents’ financial information if if you were under 24 or if your school required it — and law schools required it. Regardless of how old you were, how long you’d been independent, or anything else.

That isn’t the case any more, at least not at all law schools. During my years at my law school, I never had to provide the financial aid office with any of my parents’ financial information, which is a good thing, as I would have been utterly screwed in that case, as my parents’ income is just high enough to disqualify me from subsidized loans, but not high enough for them to be able to contribute anything to law school (especially with my three younger sibs still at home). Then again, I probably could have gotten out of any of those requirements – even if they did still exist – since I am married and was married during school.

Now as far as the overall point of the post is concerned, well, I’m going to have to move over to my own blog and post something on it there, since that’s a major rant and I don’t want to monopolize y’all’s space.

Thanks for posting the article.

Man! So much easier to blame the students than to actually figure out how to help them find a way through these crushing mountains of student loan debt and declining beginning salaries for young professionals.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! It makes me want to SCREAM!

Choices? Move away from your support system or live the best way you can here. Maybe grad school? But isn’t going to the same grad school where you went to undergrad considered gauche? Who the fuck knows? Linda Hirschman hasn’t written that book yet.

Long time, no bitching, Lauren… But I can say with reasonable certainty that for many purposes, getting a grad degree the same place you finished undergrad is not a horrible option. At least, I sure the fuck hope that it isn’t.

There *might* be a concern if you are looking for a job in the ivory tower, and you get both your initial and terminal degrees at the same place.

From personal experience, I don’t think having a BA and MA from the same place is going to hurt me that much. Because I don’t know what I’m going to do with either of them in the first place.

Give a stranger a shout sometime if you want some company / distraction / beer. :)

I do understand the problem that students have with loans today and agree that there should be more aid and the system needs overhauling. (Contrast today’s costs to mine, circa 1973: My undergrad degree from NYU cost around $12,000 total for tuition and fees.)

What does this mean? That my parents may not have enough money to stay above the poverty line when they retire, and that both of us (more him of course) are going to be saddled with a huge debt when our degrees can’t even guarantee us a job. I know for a lot of you that’s already a common occurence, but it’s a hit in the gut for us because it’s a relatively recent development, brought in by a government which frequently pays lip service to supporting education, and who skirted through the system without fees, but with generous grants given to many of them in order to pursue their own higher education.

1) What role do you think universities play in the financial burdens of students? Specifically, (a) how much has your institution raised tuition over and above inflation? (b) how much does your institution spend on hifalutin’ research and superstar professors whom most undergraduates will never see?

2) What relation do you think (1a) has to the scandalously low workload of many tenured professors?

3) When was the last time you were even in the same room with an undergraduate?

as a recent MSW grad in NYC, i have 2x more student loan debt than yearly income, after two years of sacrifice and credit card debt just trying to pay the rent and put food on the table. of course there are those (i knew them well) whose parents footed the tab for tuiton, Manhattan rents, and a DKNY interview suit, but most folks i know were in the same ramen-eatin’ place i was. i hate that cultural myth that says we’re a lazy, spoiled generation—we work our asses off and there ain’t no makin it.