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The Stupidity of Youth creates the Doom of the Aged More

The Stupidity of Youth creates the Doom of the Aged

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  • I'm going to give you a burst of cold, harsh reality here. You were (are) living in a fantasy land. Don't get me wrong, ideals can be a good thing. But you were way way too idealistic, hence the reason for overestimating your income and underestimating your debt. Pursuing your dreams is admirable, but reality has a nasty way of messing that up sometimes. It sounds to me like from this point forward, for the next few years, your main concern needs to be "how can I make money"? Don't just work hard, but work
  • I never realised the US charged so much for tertiary education. $120,000USD? That's insane. How do they expect anybody except the rich to afford education? Or did I just answer my own question?
    • Well, depending on how many credits per semester, the fact that it took 7 years might have something to do with the resulting debt.

      Also, public vs. private institutions, the cost of living etc.

      Expensive? You bet, especially if you're not pulling in an income while you go to school.

      I worked full time and went to school full time, and I still came out with about 20K in debt. Probably would have been more, but I had a career so it was more than just a part time salary pay check.
    • It depneds on where you go, too.
      The more "prestigious" schools are privately-operated, and tuition and board can easily come out to US$25000 to US$35000 PER YEAR.

      On the other hand, each state has at least one state-sponsored university, of good-to-excellent quality (my state has three, one of which is rated in the top ten in the country for engineering) where tuition and board is closer to US$10000 per year. Scholarships further reduce that--my education, which took five years all told, only cost me ~$450
  • Is your debt mostly school or credit cards?

    Also, thanks for making me feel better. I'm only about $7,000 in debt, and was feeling a little helpless there.

    Get a paypal account and start accepting donations. It's a thought.

    • The credit card debt is gone, thanks to my parent's generosity. What I'm left with is seven years of student loans and the interest accruing on them, amounting to $120,000.

  • *whew* (Score:2)

    by escher ( 3402 ) *
    I am sooooo glad I dropped out of college and with $0 in loans. The only thing my lack of a CS degree has prevented is immigration (emmigration?) to Canada.
    • The only thing my lack of a CS degree has prevented is immigration (emmigration?) to Canada.

      Wow, they require that now?
    • My brother, also a champion decision maker like myself (it must run in the family), dropped out of school after one year Out-of-State tuition, and ended up owing 12,000 USD and having nothing to show for it.
  • Sort of appropriate:
    Mistakes [despair.com]
    (Seems to be based on referer, so copy, click and paste.)
    I've managed to sink myself in a bit of a hole finanacially, but nothing to compare with you. Again, my hole exists from my own bad choices, and I am going to be digging out for a while.
    One suggestion I would offer, try and get a job at a university. Tomorrow evening I will be starting a 2 year BS IS program at the university I work at, which normally runs $30k. Since I am a full time employee, I just have to pay fo
    • i dont even know what i'd do. i'm 25 and send my fulltime college app in last week. i expect to start in the spring. i dont have a financial plan, i'm just gonna borrow what i need to and put my soul on lay-away.

      120 grand, though, is a lot of money. i guess if someone told me i had to pay 120 grand off, i would line up a second job, work 80 hour weeks figuring 25k each so 50k a year, takehome 40, live off 15k, and camp out and not get anyone pregnant for 6 years. hooboy.

      dude good luck, i wish you the
      • Try to make some sort of plan for your finances. I'm only 27 and have gotten myself in a hole becasue I tended to just play things by ear. It's amazing all of the little living expenses that will eat you alive. Food, rent, utilities, these you expect. Gasoline for your car shoud be accounted for, and that has been getting really expensive of late. There are some sneakier ones though, car maintainance for example, you have to remember to budget for tires, oil changes, the occasional chipped windshield.
  • If you're only making $700 payments a month on $130K in debt, you really need to look at bankruptcy. Heh, you can even check Suzi Orman (.com) for the specifics.

    How in the hell you were allowed to put yourself that far into debt is beyond me. Government loans couldn't get you close to that (when I went to school, '93-'98). Sounds like predatory practices on the part of non-government (i.e. looking to make a profit) institutions.

    • It's pretty easy to rack up $120,000 over seven years of college. (It's actually more like, $100,000 in student loans, and $20,000 interest that's been accruing for 7 years).

      While I appreciate your advice, I don't think I will ever look into bankruptcy, for several reasons :

      • I'm not SUFFOCATING in debt. I can make the payments, just at the expense of what I REALLY want to do for the next 25 years. If I could not afford the payments at all, and was starving as a result, then that might become an option
      • OK, as long as it's not going to ruin your life. Some people want to do the right thing so much that they hurt themselves badly in doing so, when they should explore options like negotiated reduced payment, etc.

        Don't forget to look long term, too. Are those payments going to be too much of a burden to support a family? If you're going to *have* to hurt your credit for 7 years, you should do it sooner rather than later. In any case, it's good to see someone being responsible :)

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