Main > Everything Else

Credit Cards (in the US)

<< < (21/24) > >>

javeryh:

--- Quote from: pinballjim on March 24, 2011, 09:28:54 am ---One thing I've found kind of interesting is a few of you have bragged about all your financial decisions and then say something like, "and going to pay for my kid's college, too."  While that's nice and all, college is quickly turning into one of your worst possible investments and all these parents saving up all this money is doing nothing but driving tuition and fees up with all this artificial demand.  Beyond that, student loans are low interest and your kid will have the rest of his life to pay it off.  That $50k you saved up isn't going to be much help if he decides he wants to be a drama major and go to some fancy liberal arts college for a low paid career.
--- End quote ---

You aren't looking at it properly - college is not a financial investment.  It is an investment in your kids' lives.  No matter the cost, college is an experience I want my kids to have.   It is out of control expensive though - only a select few will ever really earn it back.  I'm guessing college will be between $250k-$300k PER KID by the time mine are ready to go.

Hoopz:

--- Quote from: HarumaN on March 24, 2011, 09:49:59 am ---
--- Quote from: Hoopz on March 24, 2011, 09:47:06 am ---
--- Quote from: HarumaN on March 24, 2011, 09:45:20 am ---2007

--- End quote ---
Damn kids....   ::)


 ;D

--- End quote ---

Hey, I'm 32...   I was a late bloomer...  (got tired of working in restaurants, so I decided to get my engineering degree)

--- End quote ---
I'm just busting your balls.  I graduated in 92 but have no idea what my interest rate was.  I only borrow a couple of grand so I wasn't overly worked up about it.

My wife just finished her nursing degree last spring (2010) and I think she (yeah, right....WE) now have 20-25k in student loans to payback.  Based on her salary, we'll cover the cost of that by the end of this year. 

ChadTower:
Actually, Jim, I addressed all of that with my plan.  I am not putting money away strictly for college.  I'm putting it away to set up an income stream to pay for college loans.  This way if the kids decide not to go to college I have a strong passive income for my own use.  If they decide to study something useless I'm good.  If they screw off college and waste the money I'm a lot less stuck resenting them because I didn't spend 15 years socking away cash just to write checks to the University.  College loans are by far the lowest interest nonsecured loans you can get so why not use them?  Any why not use a passive income stream to make the monthly payments?  This way I'm using someone else's money to generate the income that I'm using to pay off a set of super low interest loans for education.  Win/win and the contingencies are positive too so long as the original investment was sound.

Vigo:
I for one am not setting up a college fund for my kid, if he wants to go to college, he has to work for it the same way I did, get scholarships, get grants, get loans. If the remaining difference to be paid is reasonable, I figure I could easily pay the rest out of pocket.

While he's still a young'un, I'm saving up most of his gift money from the grandparents and family and will be investing that for him over the years. That will be a "---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- Creek" fund in case he does something stupid and needs cash. I am not gonna tell him about the money so he expects nothing.

Am I cheap? Yeah...but I am incredibly self sufficient, and need to pass that ability on the hard way.

ChadTower:

There is something to be said for that.  I paid for my 4+ years of college myself and my wife's 4 years of college too.  It taught me a lot of things.

There is also something to be said for being able to start your own post college life without $100k in debt and ten years of payments crippling your finances.  I am setting my kids up so hopefully they won't have to do that but am not going to give them the choice of any college they want.  If they want my ride they're going to go to a good state college probably in our state so we're using in state rates.  Anything over that will be loans they pay off themselves.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page

Go to full version