New York May Offer Free Tuition Soon

[miah]

Student loans should not be higher interest than auto or mortgages (IMHO) ... it's just not fair.... it used to be that attending college and higher education could help raise you up out of poverty and debt.... not so sure that is as true now for the masses that use the traditional route of achieving higher education degrees...

I know plenty of kids paying their way through school, or who have grants and scholarships.  You do NOT have to take out tens of thousands of dollars of student loans to get through school!  If you can't afford it, you can choose less expensive schools, choose to work for a year or two instead of going to school, find jobs where they will pay for tuition, etc.  People who go to schools they can't afford and then take out tons of student loans to pay for it...well, that was just not smart.  I'm not talking about $10k in student loans, I'm talking $50-$150k.  That's just dumb.

And yes, when I was 18, and got accepted to Stanford, I thought it might be a great idea to take out loans to go, and my mom said ABSOLUTELY NOT!  Thank heavens someone in my life was smarter than I was right then, because I was an 18 year old moron.

Did you wait for your financial aid package? I avoided applying to good schools because I thought I couldn't afford them. It turns out that I probably would have gotten scholarships and grants directly from the school to cover most of the tuition.

They applied to state schools not private colleges. It still costs $100K to get a 4 year degree at SUNY colleges if you live on campus and maybe slightly less if you live off campus. 

Both of these young adults will be paying off loans for decades. The one will probably be better off than the other as one went for Engineering while the other ended up finishing up a degree in psychology. He prefers F2F courses over taking tests. 

The engineering student got some scholarships but still has a large student loan debt. The other one didn't get scholarships as far as I know.

Sorry, but I'm not buying that a substantial number of SUNY students are going $100k in debt. Take Buffalo State College, for example. On average, students take out less than $7,000 a year in loans. 

https://www.collegefactual.com/colleges/...loan-debt/

I'm also not buying that business, education, and psychology programs are hard to find.

It might be true that the average student loan is $7K but that is including all the students on PELL and other financial aid/scholarships. Not everyone is lucky enough to get that level of financial support! And I know many that do that don't get the academic supports they need as first generation college students that drop out because the colleges only care about getting them admitted, not ensuring they make it to graduation!  I know because I've seen it first hand Yet they'll whine about losing students and their stats, and play dumb about why so many students don't make it and drop out. . PS- I never said that business, education or psychology degrees were hard to find. I was stating the exact opposite. I was using those as examples, because you can find them practically at ever college!!! PS2- It still doesn't make any sense that student loan rates are higher than auto loans and mortgage rates!!!