(no subject)

[doyle]

I'm looking around Stanford's website for a Connor fic. Clicky clicky onto the law school and I read:

Local transportation, clothing, recreation, and the like are more variable items, but most single students will find that they need to budget a total of at least $50,000 for the school year. For a married student, the minimum budget will be about $60,000. Tuition is due at registration in September and January.

...holy *shit*. $50,000? That's £27,000! Or, to put it another way, more than ten times what the last university year cost me, including 12 months rent.

The £16,000 ($30,000) student loan debt I'll have when I graduate suddenly doesn't seem quite so bad.

ETA: Also, the jvtl_project (Jossverse timeline project) makes my canon-geek heart go squee.

And in my head Stanford!Connor is studying anthropological science.

Comments

[chicken-cem.livejournal.com]

Given these shocking facts, it is absolutely no surprise that so many Americans are in huge debt and declare bankruptcy.

See, the student loans have fairly low interest (2%-3%), so even though one can rack up $200,000 of student loan debt, one might pay it off some day.

But most normal students also have no actual cash (due to very low pay from those wordk-study jobs), so they get credit cards (and those evil credit card companies set up tables on the first day of college to lure in naive students). If one also builds up, say, $50,000 in credit card debt (whichh average 13% to 28% interest), what you end with is a ton of students, millions, who will either be in debt for the rest of their lives or will have to declare bankruptcy.

Meanwhile, all the stupid rich kids from famous and/or wealthy families have their wealthy daddies pay all the tuition (think, George W. going to Yale and his rich daddy the other George easily paying the tuition).

[jedi-penguin.livejournal.com]

It's worse than that. Credit card companies actively pursue college students and encourage them to get into debt. My sister did not go to college, and she had a helluva time getting a credit card. I did go, and got three to five application forms a week. Since the applications stopped coming after I paid off the last of my college loans, I can only assume that the loan companies sell names to the credit card companies.

[chicken-cem.livejournal.com]

Yes -- the pursuit begins on the very first day of school. The students walk down the street in a strange new town on the way to the Bookstore, outside of which are multiple tables set up with credit card company reps behind them waiting to snag the students.

[makd.livejournal.com]

college professor here, so I know whereof I speak: the COLLEGES sell the names and addresses! Sometimes, the high schools sell the names and addresses.

and the credit cards for students? usually at 21.5% interest, whereas, if you hunt around, you can get a credit card for 8-9% interest.

I've had students graduating from the State U where I teach owing about $75k...just from tuition, etc., because they swiped the card rather than borrow from a bank.

Irony? the usual interest rate for student loans here is ~8% - so the students owing $$ have really overpaid if they've borrowed with a credit card rather than a loan.