Good evening everyone...
On a daily basis I take my dogs on a walk for about 45 minutes. It gives me a chance to calm down from the day, get a little exercise, and do some thinking.
On this particular walk I started thinking about when I was 18 getting ready for college. I thought back to a specific conversation between my mom and I. I asked my mom if my college was going to be paid for and she told me not worry about it and "just have fun", it would all be taken care of. I did not question her because it sounded like it would be for in cash. I would regularly ask my mom about the payments and she told me she had a monthly payment plan to pay tuition. She never once mentioned that she was paying for school through student loans. I find myself wanting to go back to 18 and ask my mom to sit down with me and tell me the financial situation for college. I wish she would have told me you x dollars to spend. If you spend more than that amount, you will have to get student loans to cover the rest. Then, I wish she would have told me an estimate of my monthly payment to student loans once I graduated. I really wish she would have included me in the discussion for the financing of college.
Then, I started thinking about how many people in student loan debt did not have parents that did not tell their kids how college would be paid for; they simply responded "don't worry, it will be taken care of, go have fun". If you are a parent reading this please sit your high school senior down at the dinner table at the start of the school year and explain to them 1) how much money you have socked away to pay for college and 2) what student loans will be like if they need them. I feel like a lot of this could be avoided if parents just explained the college budget to their students.
On the other hand, why don't high school seniors have to take a personal finance/ adult life class? I know this sounds stupid, but if someone had told me what life would be like with student loan payments, I would have tried at all costs to avoid having them! I feel like high school seniors should be informed on student loans and debt in general before they go to college. Many of the kids will receive a credit card in their name and take out student loans. They must understand the "ins-and-outs" of these things before they get them. Most kids would look at this as a symbol of freedom, and to a point it is, but they are ultimately bound to whatever amount of debt they take on for the next 20 years and if they do income-based payments, 30 years! That is a good chunk of their life to carry this burden. I feel it is only fair to teach students about these and let them make the decision on their own.
Sorry for the random thoughts, but I go worked up on my walk about this.
We are pending about $1,000 in extra loan payments this month! Woo-hoo! I will update the debt totals as soon as I get the payments cleared and see the new balances.
It's ridiculous that we're not educating high school seniors about finances. My father was very nonchalant about college and the costs, urging me to always continue on. Now that I have the amount of student loans that I do, I consider college one of the biggest mistakes of my life. I wouldn't be paying off my loans until I'm 50 if I had been educated about student loans and interest.
ReplyDeleteCollege is important...if you can afford all of those advanced degrees. I agree with you. Some days I regret going to college, but then I wonder what life would be like without the degree other than clearly being debt-free.
DeleteThough we weren't told to have fun, we were made to take the max amount offered and use it as a tax refund. It was often gone within a few months. I knew they were loans, but yeah, I had NO idea what I was getting into. I had no idea what I had gotten myself into until I crunched the numbers less than 3-4 years ago (which was 4 years after I graduated!). I don't think I would've been able to change the outcome, but I would've definitely liked to be introduced to this. I am sure if highschool seniors are introduced to student loans (aka life in debt), things would be different.
ReplyDeleteCongrats on the extra payments!
I agree. We must educate these future college students about loans and what life will be like. Some claim that may be too harsh, but I feel they need honesty. Heck, I am going to teach my 8th grade students about them soon!
DeleteWe are still waiting on those extra payments to clear out. Apparently the loan company does not like to update their websites to show less money than currently reflected!
When I was in high school (late 90s), I opted for a Personal Finance course my senior year in place of pre-calc, mostly because I am hopeless with mathematics courses. This course however was most useful as it taught practical skills such as keeping a checkbook, how car loans and mortgages work, and how to manage credit cards. I guess the public schools stopped offering this or never did? Like many of us I got sucked into student debt, although to be honest it was for the better.
ReplyDeleteCompletely off topic but I thought I'd share since the weather got nice (at least here). I have a co-worker with similar student debts and four kids (unexpected twins about 3 years ago) who was looking to max out the usability of his '01 Accord/105K, hopefully till the end of his life as he put it.
Check your wheel wells and lower doors for rust and get them taken care of if you find any... if not make sure to wax the area well every six months or so (should prob wax the whole car but in lieu of this, make sure to do the wheel wells/doors & jamb). Have it put up on a rack and look for any frame rot under the car, and if possible have this also handled. Change all the fluids (tranny/coolant/power steering/brake) with Honda spec replacements (either Honda or Nissan trannys are funny about the OEM fluid, I can't recall which) and ask the dealer how much to change the fuel filter and price a tune up. Change all of the cheap bulbs (brake, turn signal etc) and know dollar store toothpaste can do wonders on fogged up headlights.
Once you're in a good financial position, I would start looking into shocks/struts, and buying the better pads/rotors as well. I learned in 2000 it pays to have the best brakes you can have, because if your car gets totaled you'll never get a car like it for the insurance money (narrowly missed hitting a deer head on in the middle of the road because I had recently changed my rotors and pads to the best I could afford).
I'm very meticulous on my primary car's maintenance, and will be changing the shocks/struts in the next year or so (car is an 08/72K), and have done all of the above maint already.
Wow...I tried to follow all of your suggestions and I got a lot of them and I am very thankful for your comment. We do a check-up with our mechanic every 3 months roughly to make sure we are good-to-go with the car. We have some savings set aside just for the car to make sure it keeps running and we do not have to buy another car. our goal is for it to last to 175,000. By then, we should be able to pay cash for a car. I will certainly write these suggestions down and run them past out mechanic to make sure we check out! Thank you again!
DeleteI agree with you that it's important to be honest and forthright with kids...but I will say that at 18 I don't think I had the foresight to really know what I was getting into. I knew that I was getting some loans (graduated with about $21,000 in debt), but didn't worry about it AT ALL. I was lucky enough to have almost half of it cancelled for teaching in low-income schools, but I honestly just wasn't responsible enough to care all that much about it. Would a class have helped me? Maybe, but then again I had to do loan counseling and just busted through it as fast as I possibly could online. Just my two cents.
ReplyDelete