College - A Waste of time?

[Churchill]

There are plenty of 250-1000$ scholarships you can win as a white male, and there are many more than don't require anything but a name, a survey and a bank account.

[Restrat]

I'm a white male and got a full ride to several universities. The idea that merit scholarships only go to minorities is pretty wrong.

[Pirian]

With the knowledge that my mother was paying for my college fully, I had much less motivation to look/apply for scholarships <.<; but my mother also didn't push or ask me to look for scholarships either, so there's that. The public HS that I went to had a pretty big section of its population that was poor, and I do remember the school being very active in telling the population of the multitude of scholarships out there -- many scholarship programs only get a few applicants a year, so your chance of getting the scholarship being pretty high.

[Headspace]

Archi, how did you pay for grad school? I know the 42k in loans, but was that all?

[archibaldcrane]

Archi, how did you pay for grad school? I know the 42k in loans, but was that all?

Yeah, tuition was like 18k a year at Miami, took a little extra for living expenses and did work-study and worked full time in the summers - so yeah that's how I paid for it. Refinanced the student loans at 1.825% like a boss, paying them off is pretty pain free, like $253 a month.

[archibaldcrane]

Feels good knowing I started undergrad at the 2nd most attractive university in the US.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newswee...n-madison.html

[Headspace]

Yeah, tuition was like 18k a year at Miami, took a little extra for living expenses and did work-study and worked full time in the summers - so yeah that's how I paid for it. Refinanced the student loans at 1.825% like a boss, paying them off is pretty pain free, like $253 a month.

I've been hella stressed about getting an assistantship for grad school. The program director told me that it's too early to worry about that and to contact him later in the summer.

By the time the program admits you, it's passed the deadline for scholarships. Most of the fellowships I don qualify for because I'm not a woman or minority or going to be a teacher. There's one fellowship for phd students that I'll try to get once I get on the phd track, but that does fuck all for me now.

Hard to find a place to live when I don't know what I can afford lol. Fuck grad school

[archibaldcrane]

Oh, I forgot, I was also a TA my 2nd year, that knocked like...50% off my tuition or something for that year?

That was a huge help. Would've done it both years but they didn't let first-years be TAs.

[Pirian]

Most of the fellowships I don qualify for because I'm not a woman or minority or going to be a teacher.

White male here, so about only time I latch onto my Jewish heritage is when it is advantageous like this, lol

[archibaldcrane]

I'm a white male and got a full ride to several universities. The idea that merit scholarships only go to minorities is pretty wrong.

If you didn't have a 4.0 and were a white male, my high school's guidance office would basically say "yeah...no" if you went for help with scholarships.

This was back in '98 of course. States vary of course, I think Florida has that Bright Futures thing which goes a long way. I had a 33 on my ACT, didn't matter.

[Restrat]

There is a difference between scholarships you apply for, which your school could help you with, and merit awards colleges give out to attract people with good grades and scores. They have other awards to give to "diverse" applicants.

[Dotsudoku]

If you didn't have a 4.0 and were a white male, my high school's guidance office would basically say "yeah...no" if you went for help with scholarships.

This was back in '98 of course. States vary of course, I think Florida has that Bright Futures thing which goes a long way. I had a 33 on my ACT, didn't matter.

It doesn't cover as much as it used to, but Bright Futures is absolutely amazing in that anyone with an average(as far as those heading toward higher education were concerned) GPA and SAT score got anywhere from a hefty tuition reduction to a full-ride. Florida occasionally does something right.

[RKenshin]

My mother always told me that if I did the work to get into college then I would never have to worry about how it was going to be paid for. Honestly, you have 18 years heads up to put money away and grow it. There isn't much excuse not to be able to at least help your child out.
Mathy-bits to show how you could easily pay for your child's college by putting away $500 a year:

Spoiler: show

$500 a year gaining 8% would give you $20,723.10 in 18 years, which almost pays for all of the average $25,000.

You could even defer payment for 4 more years taking out a Staffard loan for 3.4% (well, soon to be 6.8%, probably) and keep letting the $20,723.10 accrue the 8% interest and pay the whole thing off at the end with the now $28,193.50, and depending on loan interest it might be to your advantage to only pay it off according to your payment plan and continue accruing interest.

Should it be the parents responsibility to pay for their child's college? Certainly not. Should the parents consider it their responsibility? Maybe so. It's not as tough as it seems, but I suppose this is a foreign idea to many American's, considering we have a lower savings rate than a majority of the developed world.

Yeah, that last bit is the major problem.

Single parent raised me and had trouble saving enough to keep food on the table, much less mass the money needed to pay (or even help pay) for college. Saving wasn't her strong point, and that seems to apply for the majority of people in this country.

It's entirely a matter of opinion to what degree parents should be responsible for their children but I'd personally consider higher education to be one of them.

Saying that they're an adult and capable of making their own decisions is a bit unfair when their choices are debt or no college education.

I don't necessarily disagree, but to play devil's advocate: Couldn't that line of thought apply for just about anything? Ex:

Saying that they're an adult and capable of making their own decisions is a bit unfair when their choices are debt or no car/transportation.

Saying that they're an adult and capable of making their own decisions is a bit unfair when their choices are debt or no house mortgage.

Saying that they're an adult and capable of making their own decisions is a bit unfair when their choices are debt or no traveling abroad.

Not that those are all equal in value, but if the idea of 'forcing' your kid to go into debt to reach some of their life milestones is unfair it can become a bit excessive.

[richardd]

Yeah, tuition was like 18k a year at Miami, took a little extra for living expenses and did work-study and worked full time in the summers - so yeah that's how I paid for it. Refinanced the student loans at 1.825% like a boss, paying them off is pretty pain free, like $253 a month.

253 is quite reasonable.

im in the health dept now, and i cannot decide if i want to go to nursing school after or be a PA. either way, i can continue my nursing at ETSU as a graduate, but as a PA, i think i have to go to some kind of technical or certified school afterwords since ETSU hardly has any depth in that area. i dont know how to ask this, but the second i get my BS, is there anyway i can still put my FA payments on hold while going to school for another 2 years at a tech institute if push comes to shove? like delay it until after everything is done? i heard they're quite the assholes the second your foot hits the red carpet and the real world greets you lol

[RKenshin]

253 is quite reasonable.

im in the health dept now, and i cannot decide if i want to go to nursing school after or be a PA. either way, i can continue my nursing at ETSU as a graduate, but as a PA, i think i have to go to some kind of technical or certified school afterwords since ETSU hardly has any depth in that area. i dont know how to ask this, but the second i get my BS, is there anyway i can still put my FA payments on hold while going to school for another 2 years at a tech institute if push comes to shove? like delay it until after everything is done? i heard they're quite the assholes the second your foot hits the red carpet and the real world greets you lol

It depends on the provider, but for the most part you can defer loan payments if you're a full/part-time student.

[richardd]

It depends on the provider, but for the most part you can defer loan payments if you're a full/part-time student.

i better do some more research on this, lol. thanks for the input and i'll ask questions regarding the deference of the payments while attending a school that specifically specializes in certain occupations next time i head in the FA office :D

[archibaldcrane]

Yeah, that last bit is the major problem.

Single parent raised me and had trouble saving enough to keep food on the table, much less mass the money needed to pay (or even help pay) for college. Saving wasn't her strong point, and that seems to apply for the majority of people in this country.

Aren't you black-ish? I thought you could just walk generally around any college campus in a polo and khaki shorts (read: white people clothing) and financial aid advisors would just throw scholarship money at you?

You too Richardd, what the fuck.

[richardd]

Aren't you black-ish? I thought you could just walk generally around any college campus in a polo and khaki shorts (read: white people clothing) and financial aid advisors would just throw scholarship money at you?

You too Richardd, what the fuck.

man, i wish. ruke and i are the uncle toms of BG and i dont know about him, but i still dont get crap other than the required loans lol. i will follow your path and start doing some work study programs, though. my networking jobs aren't paying all of bills and i hate having to rely on my savings.

[archibaldcrane]

Do you specifically apply for scholarships for African Americans?

Boom, tough-actin blackscholarshipenactin

http://www.naacp.org/pages/naacp-scholarships

lol

also

http://blackstudents.blacknews.com/

[Headspace]

Well I guess I should ask here. Since I'm going to grad school, do I need to worry about deferring loan payments or do those automatically defer until I graduate from the grad program?