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    indigo Offline OP
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    It's the Student, Not the College (2015) is a book which discusses ways in which students can distinguish themselves. In one chapter, the Congressional Award for youth is mentioned, and the author is herself a recipient of the Congressional Award bronze medal.

    TO: All students wondering “Can I get into my dream college?”
    CC: All parents wondering “Can we afford it?”
    FROM: Educational consultant Kristin M. White

    MEMO: COLLEGE RANKINGS DON’T MATTER. This claim might sound crazy, but it’s true: Research shows that where you go to school makes little difference to future financial success or quality of life—personal qualities such as ambition, perseverance, and a sense of purpose are all more important.

    Kristin M. White has helped hundreds of parents and students look beyond the dream-school hype and focus on what’s most important. Now, in It’s the Student, Not the College, she shows how to avoid unrepayable debt and set yourself up to grow, excel, and enjoy yourself at any school.

    Instead of obsessing over GPA cutoffs and SAT scores, students will learn how to build a personal “Success Profile”—by adopting the traits that help stellar students make the grade in school and life. Plus . . .
    •Why what you do in school counts more than where you go
    •14 surefire ways to develop your Success Profile as a student and beyond
    •Criteria to consider when choosing a college
    •How to find a good fit for your family’s finances
    •And tips for graduating career-ready and landing a great first job.
    Expensive, elite colleges have too much sway over the minds and bank accounts of students and parents. It’s the Student, Not the College breaks that stranglehold—and reveals the real secrets of success.

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    Thanks for posting. I'm growing quite weary of hearing of students strapped with 50k-150k plus of student loan debt starting off in their career. People need to understand that state college is a good option in most states and a heck of a lot less expensive in the majority of instances.

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    Yes. Particularly for gifted kids (any variety) the local public college, or a modestly priced small school, can and does provide a great undergraduate education that can still unlock elite graduate programs.

    It's a little crazy to think that a few years of education should leave a student (or parents) with 100K+ in debt. That is the kind of debt that prevents home ownership, building a family, or accepting an exciting (but not well-paying) first job that comes with non-monetary career advantages.



    Schrödinger's cat walks into a bar. And doesn't.
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    It's unfortunate that states are defunding their public schools. My sister recently completed a bachelors at a California State campus, transferring from a community college with junior standing. Due to overcrowding, credit limits, and difficulty registering for her required courses, it took another three years and 40K in debt to finish. Terrifying.

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    Originally Posted by Old Dad
    Thanks for posting. I'm growing quite weary of hearing of students strapped with 50k-150k plus of student loan debt starting off in their career. People need to understand that state college is a good option in most states and a heck of a lot less expensive in the majority of instances.

    State colleges often get you $100,000 in debt.

    It's the private colleges that get you up to $200,000+.

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    Where I'm from, state college tuition & fees is 8k a year for undergraduates, with books room & board, one can easilty do $18,000 a year here. Work a part time job or land a partial scolarship and one can then easily escape with an undergraduate degree in 4 years with 50k or under of debt upon graduation......of course, if your degree at that time can't make you more than 30k a year then you choose unwisely to be able to afford your field of study.

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    indigo Offline OP
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    Originally Posted by ljoy
    It's unfortunate that states are defunding their public schools.
    Some may say that the sad fact is there simply are no funds. Our country is in debt. This National Debt means that the taxes collected are not enough to pay for all the services people have become accustomed to.

    This ties in with a current thread, Kids & money, as parents must make important decisions as to what to teach their children about money management, from earning money, to personal finance and time value of money, credit, debt, etc.

    Quote
    My sister recently completed a bachelors at a California State campus, transferring from a community college with junior standing. Due to overcrowding, credit limits, and difficulty registering for her required courses, it took another three years and 40K in debt to finish. Terrifying.
    If I understand correctly, with junior transfer standing, she anticipated completing her degree in two years, and it took three years (one additional year)?

    A possible downside to transfers (not that this specifically occurred with your sister's education) is that individuals may receive many of their transfer credits as "electives", then face the challenge of scheduling the required courses for their major. For decades, many colleges have not offered every course every semester. For example, some courses may be offered during the Spring semester only, Fall semester only, or offered on a rotational basis every third semester. Students, especially transfer students, may need to engage in a lot of planning and discussion with department heads in order to set up a schedule for graduating on a timely basis. Options for online courses, blended courses (online and in-person) and accelerated courses may, in some cases, help a student set up an optimal schedule.

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    indigo Offline OP
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    Originally Posted by Old Dad
    field of study
    Agreed. These resources have been mentioned elsewhere on the forums, but may also be helpful here, to future readers of this thread.

    1) The US Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, has an Occupational Outlook Handbook (OOH) which may be helpful for looking into various fields of study.

    2) The "Big Future" feature of the College Board also provides information about majors and careers.

    Thinking of career choices brings to mind a post in an old thread:
    Originally Posted by post in an old thread
    ... Forty or fifty years ago, the US offered lots of manufacturing jobs that paid a living wage, and people who weren't bright enough to be lawyers or engineers or whatever (or who couldn't afford college) could find a decent job.

    Now we've outsourced a lot of these jobs, and we've decided that everyone should just go to college and become a knowledge worker. IMO, this is insane. You can't make people smarter by wishing it so, and the results are predictable. People with college degrees end up working as security guards, at Starbucks, and in other low-skill jobs (but they have huge loans to pay off). We're building an entire economy around a fantasy.

    On top of this, we put so much effort into average and below-average students, we forget about the bright students who actually have the talent to be high-caliber knowledge workers. This happens through a combination of ignoring them in elementary school and then watering down math, science, and English courses in middle school and beyond.

    And then everyone wonders why things don't improve. We hear that the real problem is that we need to throw more money at the issue, while ignoring how we spend the money and the fact that the US education expenditures are above average among OECD countries. We even spend more than the much-vaunted Finland as a percentage of overall public expenditure....

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    Originally Posted by indigo
    If I understand correctly, with junior transfer standing, she anticipated completing her degree in two years, and it took three years (one additional year)?

    A possible downside to transfers (not that this specifically occurred with your sister's education) is that individuals may receive many of their transfer credits as "electives", then face the challenge of scheduling the required courses for their major. For decades, many colleges have not offered every course every semester. For example, some courses may be offered during the Spring semester only, Fall semester only, or offered on a rotational basis every third semester.
    Correct. The courses she needed were offered on a very reasonable schedule. However, due to budget constraints, only half the students who needed a course were able to register for it at a time. At least once, she had to go on leave for a semester because she could not register for the exact courses she needed - they were offered, but were full by the time her registration lottery number came up. (I did not count time off in the 3 years above.) She did fully utilize online options, and these were not small classes.

    Students were also capped at less than a full credit load, decreasing their eligibility for financial aid if the schedule was not perfect - for instance full load might be defined as 16 credits, but the cap is 12 credits, and for financial aid you must register at least 3/4 time. This means that if you can't register for exactly 12 credits, you are not eligible for any aid at all. Caps were declared as little as 2 weeks before the registration date. If a class is cancelled after the first day of the term, you *will* have to repay any financial aid you have received for the term, unless you can miraculously late-add a course that is exactly the same number of credits.

    My point is that while a state school can look like a great deal on paper, the logistics of actually graduating can make it a lot less attractive. This changes year by year, with little notice, and is getting much worse very quickly.
    ETA: CSU may still be a great choice for an accelerated kid who can live at home. In that situation, it makes much less of a difference whether you graduate in 4 years vs 6 or more. There would be less urgency about finding a job to cover rent on zero notice when financial aid is pulled and you therefore have to go on leave for the semester. For an independent adult, it was a nightmare.

    Last edited by ljoy; 06/24/15 01:35 PM.
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    Originally Posted by ljoy
    ETA: CSU may still be a great choice for an accelerated kid who can live at home. In that situation, it makes much less of a difference whether you graduate in 4 years vs 6 or more.
    No, because two years of peak earnings could amount to $200K or more.

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