One Snarky Chica with Issues

I have a brother that has just started his senior year of high school and is about to begin navigating the college application process. He’s a 4.0 student and wants to go to school for Art. Other than that, he has no real clue what he wants to do in life. And he has picked out only one school that he wants to apply to. It’s a private liberal arts school that is well known only locally with annula tuition of $30,348. Room and board is listed as $8,780 a year. That’s a whole lot of money for a seemingly useless degree.

I sat him down and tried to pass along some of the wisdom I have gained. See, I have around $100,000 in student loan debt. I started out at a school much like the one he wants to go to. I went there for 2 years, moved out of state and paid out of state tuition for 2 years, then moved back and went to a state school for 2 more years. Why 6 years you ask? Because I kept changing my major. And because classes from private schools don’t transfer so well. I also got my MBA after that.

Anyways, I told him that it was only worthwhile to pay that much if he was going to a school that was recognized for that program. I told him if he was going to the Art Institute of Chicago for instance then it would be a different story. I told him to spend 2 years at a community college if he insisted on going to school. Then I told him what I wish I had done and what I would tell anyone that is thinking of going to college.

Apply to a lot of schools and go anywhere that will give you a full ride. Take what you would spend on tuition and put it in a Roth IRA or mutual fund and let compound interest work for you. Get a job right out of high school and try to work your way up in a company that will pay for you to go to school. Never take out loans to pay for school. And in my experience, college is only worthwhile if you are going for something that you NEED a degree for, i.e. medicine.

Some of you will say ‘that’s rubbish’ and the like, but hear me out. The job I have now, I don’t need a degree for. I have 2 degrees and I did not need them to get this job. Yes, the girl that sits beside me is making $4 less an hour. BUT she does not have the massive student loan payment that I have each month. So, who is really better off here? She is because it is easier for her to put money away in savings where I am having to pay student loan payments.

On MSNBC,com yesterday, the question was asked College pays, but does the debt? According to the article the average person graduates college with $19,000 in student loan debt. Guess that makes me an over-achiever, eh? The article says that there is proven research that shows that over a lifetime that the cost of a degree is well worth it. However, it says that the benefit of the degree is dimishing as the debtload of students is getting higher.

A nice thing of interest in the article is a list of programs that forgive student loans like teaching. The list is as follows:

• The National Health Services Corps
• Nurse Loan Repayment
• The National Institute of Health
• Federal Teaching Programs
• State Teaching Programs
• The Peace Corps
• AmeriCorps

Another article I noticed yesterday said you can Offshore your college student and save. I was always intrigued by the thought of going to college overseas but the cost turned me away. Now I wish I had investigated a bit further. While the cost does seem high, the catch is that you do not have to stay in school as long as you do in the States! A kid from Tennessee is mentioned in the article as he went to Oxford in England and got a law degree in only 3 years! Can you believe that?!? Of course, this sort of game plan is only a good idea if you know for sure what you want to do in life.

If I could do it all over, I’d either go to college overseas or work until I found an employer willing to foot the bill for my eduaction.