“You’ll know the right school when you visit it,” a college counselor told us when my firstborn was getting ready to graduate back in 2018. “She’ll walk on to the campus and fall in love.” The kind of love that $70,000 a year in tuition can get you.
Has she made friends, learned things, gained work experience, and will now one day be a 35 year-old woman unbeholden to a student loan officer?
My de, fancy schools and some less exciting but affordable ones. She cried the day we told her we couldn’t make it work with any of the fall-in-love schools – that we, in fact, wouldn’t. She cried a long time.
Now, she’s in her final year at a humble, small-town state school she loves; and if all goes well, she will graduate this spring will zero debt. We have used the little savings we began socking away when she was an infant, worked whatever financial aid we could get, gone without a lot of home repairs. She has held down jobs, she has transferred the community college credits she diligently earned in high school. It’s been challenging. Has my daughter experienced the idyllic university experience of every romanticized tour she ever went on? Probably not. That’s the dream. And as my younger daughter now begins her senior year of high school, that’s the dream for her as well.
“When I was in high school, they drilled us with this whole idea that the first thing you do is focus on where you want to go to school, find the best colleges, and then figure out how to pay for it later,” says Corey Noyes. “You’re doomed from the beginning if that’s your mindset. That’s why we are where we are right now. I think you need to pick a budget first, and figure out what fits into there.”
In the end, the financial aid offered from the fancy schools was mostly in the form of an “award” of a little money and a suggestion that a jobless, barely-18-year-old and her barely-middle class parents take out near unlimited loans, annually
(I didn’t exactly buy my co-op with cash.) Depending on a student’s academic potential and the field of the student’s study, loans right now may well be a smart investment toward future earning potential. But it’s essential to be clear-eyed, practical and realistic. It’s wise to remember that college is not the best or the direct path for everyone anyway.
Jack Craig, a certified personal trainer with Inside Bodybuilding, offers an example. “Personal training requires a few certifications,” he says, “most of which can be done online or through some certification programs. There are actually many high school-based programs that can teach students how to become personal trainers.”
Bankruptcy attorney Lyle D. Solomon concurs. “Higher ed is evolving. More and more employers are willing to overlook the piece of paper if you still have experience and training. A lot of tech jobs do not care about the degree. They care if you can code, for example. If you can pull together some decent certifications, and show competency in the skills needed for https://worldpaydayloans.com/payday-loans-nv/alamo/ the job, then a degree is overlooked. Graphic designers, video editors, website designers, sales, all don’t need degrees, they need competence.”
And with work experience and/or career readiness programs, a person can always decide to go to college later for a more advanced path in their field. There is nothing wrong with job training, especially compared with discovering that you hate your major after three years of paying university tuition.
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