TIL: Millennials have 300% more student debt than their parents
TIL: Millennials have 300% more student debt than their parents
Is that including the interest parents are paying?
1I paid more for textbooks than my dad paid for tuition and textbooks
101I paid more in lab fees than tuition and textbooks
38
I would simply work a part time job that pays three times as much as what my parents' made when they were in college. And then I'd live in housing that's one third the price. And then I'd graduate into a profession that pays three times as much so I can pay down the debt faster.
Seems simple enough.
67Not a bad plan, but it's way easier to be born into an emerald mining fortune.
48Most debauched party-thrower at Stanford University.
6
Don't forget investing in a house that's 3-5x (if your lucky) more than that same house was worth when your parents bought their first home.
18My grandparents died a couple years back, and the city said their in town land was worth almost a hundred thousand dollars. The house itself would have to be torn down, which makes me think it could only be negatively affecting the value of the land.
There's a sinkhole forming in the back yard from a pool that someone filled with sand ~70 years ago. Idk if that appraisal was just uninformed or if the housing market has really gotten that bad
7
Or .... don't bother going to school and just work in construction and manual labor in your own small business.
It's what I did for myself and now I own four properties and several vehicles without any debt. It's all remote properties and all my vehicles are all old used and well worn .... but at least I own everything outright.
-5Alright, we all stopped going to college and all of us started our own construction business. How do I get laborers? Everyone is just trying to get me to work at their construction company.
18Or … don’t bother going to school and just work in construction and manual labor in your own small business.
Just Become a Small Business Tyrant is an excellent way to get rich quick... assuming you've got friends and family who can give you the inside contractor route.
Hell, that's how Bill Gates made it big. His mom, a Board Member at IBM, handed her son the contract to design a novel OS. And now he's a billionaire 80 times over! No student debt to speak of, because he Learnt 2 Code.
but at least I own everything outright.
I mean, I'd rather be paying a 2% note on debt when my equities are doing 30% in a year. But I'm not really a business guy.
7
Every textbook today comes with a goddamn one-use code, and they're made in such a way that they're useless without it.
It's theft and extortion. But what are we going to do about it?
Yeah, thought so.
40Pirate last year’s edition. Works unless you have one of those DB professors that checks what edition you have.
15I pirated old editions of most textbooks but I had a few professors that required a textbook that came with a code that you'd need to register for online quizzes. Answering these online quizzes was 30% of your grade in the course, so not buying the textbook was essentially taking a -30% penalty to your grade. If that wasn't bad enough, one of the textbooks like that was solely written by the professor teaching the course. It was around 100 pages of basic facts and then a code for online quizzes and sold for $200. This guy taught a class of 400 first year students. What a racket.
23
During my first two semesters i've genuinely had to buy 300$+ bundles of books, literally only because the online single-use code was conveniently placed under the wrapper, with no other way to obtain one
6
I had a huge scholarship of about 70% that I was incredibly proud of. I STILL came out with debt about 670% more than my father without any assistance at all. And that's adjusted for inflation too! I'm ancient now so the price I paid is way cheaper than the poor bastards now. It's insanity.
36It's capitalism in the education sector.
12Exactly what the GOP wants to do to grade school.
3
They should eat 300% more billionaires.
31Agreed, though GenX and Boomers aren't eating any billionaires either. Which they should.
2I agree to your agreement, mon frere. Hold my beer, I'm lighting the grill.
2
It was all the Starbucks and avocado toast they bought at the Student Union.
—boomers.
21Avocado toast costs less than a bowl of cheerios where I live 😭
1
A considerable majority of gen-x people I know have higher no education, just because throwing themselves into the workforce was easier for them. If they do have any, it was practically free too. So realistically, no surprise there
9Supposedly 29% of GenX have college degrees, and 39% OF millenials do.
Practically free is pretty relative. There were plenty of people in the 90s and 2000s crazily paying 30, 40, 50k a year. Or more. But not nearly as many.
3
How does one even eat that much avocado toast ? Its not humanly possible.
9*in this US (with pay-walled references)
6Only 300% more? Things are looking up!
6Right, that seems really low
3
Pretty surprised that it's 300% since the cost of tuition has gone up at least 600% just since I was in school, and I'm not a boomer.
5When everything is a commodity. Sometimes, things are just good to do. Our priorities are fucked
5Makes sense. Most of the millennial grads I know, are bartending or waiting tables. I know I did till I learned to code.
4Yay!! For the economy and investors!!!
Right!!?
Right?
4Oof. Even investors (who aren't billionaires) are getting shafted by the current deal.
Stock performance has been utter shit, because the SEC (and equivalents) aren't blocking illegal company mergers and acquisitions.
3
Hopefully their parents have paid down or paid off their student debt.
3When I went to college I had saved every penny that I made. I went to a community college for two years under an earned scholarship and worked during that time; then I transferred into a four-year institution that required three years of classes. I paid for the first two years with my savings and part of the third year with a loan. I continued on to grad school and took research/teaching assistantships to provide a salary that covered housing, but received free tuition as part of the deal.
My first semester at the four-year school was way harder than anything I was used to. At community college I had coasted along, but this required effort. Paying for it myself out my bank account made it so much more real, and I decided then that I was going to do better because I sure as heck didn't work so hard all those years just to throw it away.
We paid for most of our millenial child's college. He ended up dropping out of college a couple of times and always spent too much money. He's now married with a wife and child, and together they make more money than my wife and I did combined up until a few years ago. They're still living paycheck-to-paycheck but have to buy every new gadget.
Our two Gen-Z daughters just went off to college. They will probably graduate, but they also don't understand the value of money. They didn't want to work, didn't want to save... They get a scholarship that pays a monthly stipend, and they burn through that as it comes in. Their college decisions were based on things like "is that campus pretty?" "is their cafeteria food really good?" regardless of the cost. They refused to do community college.
What's my take? These three kids have a sense of entitlement and a need for immediate gratification that I didn't really see in my generation. I'm pretty sure this isn't the result of bad parenting (we adopted the two younger ones as teens), and I see it with co-workers' children as well.
Does that mean that every Millenial or Gen-Z is like this? No. It just means these three definitely are. But they don't get much pity from me when they complain and it was the result of bad choices. I chose my college path based on value: scholastic and economic. They chose their path based on social and sensory reasons.
-10Gadgets are cheap.
2His aren't. A pair of high-end massage guns so they can massage each other at the same time instead of taking turns. BowFlex adjustable dumbbells. Not a gadget, but a new Tesla Model S and charging port. There's an Amazon Echo Show in a few rooms...
I'm not saying that he shouldn't buy those things -- I'm saying he has a different mindset than I did/do, but I do believe that my mindset makes it easier to get by financially.
1