I'm still in awe that starting off your life with massive student loans is a thing. This is almost always a very poor decision as there are tons of cheap regional schools where a part time job can mostly get you through school with very little debt. And yet we've got a generation of new adults starting life under crushing debt that purchased them something of dubious value (an expensive degree versus a cheap one). My regional university had a decent CS program and tuition was $3k/year.
I teach at the University of South Carolina, where tuition and fees are over $10K a year. To my knowledge, the same is true of all the other four-year colleges in the state (Clemson, College of Charleston, Lander, USC Upstate, The Citadel etc.)
Not as outrageous as private school tuition, but it's still a very substantial burden, especially when you factor in food and housing as well.
My impression is that this is quite typical for the US. I would be delighted to learn that I am mistaken.
The "one weird trick to graduate on the cheap! colleges hate him!" of choice these days is community college.
Have fun trying to get your credits to transfer. I had trouble getting credits to transfer from the Air Force Academy to a state college. They want you to do them there. They would take them as generic credit hours but it was an uphill battle to get them to actually satisfy graduation requirements (which are the real thing that keeps you from graduating, you will already have enough credit hours).
I've always heard that you should complete your AA at community college before transfering for your bachelors as it's a lot easier to transfer with the entire degree than trying to translate individual credit hours between schools.
So first two years cheap at community college for an AA/AS then you only have two years for your bachelors at a more expensive school.
I was charged more than that for a public university in the 1990s. In a few years I paid for that, my wife's similar loans, and a new car. I also got married and had my first two kids.
So it looks cheap to me, assuming the housing isn't insane. I think there is a reasonable assumption that a person gets loans, chooses a sensible major, and actually graduates.
As it turns out, if you ask children with little to no experience living independently and managing money to do something predicated on living independently and managing money, they make poor decisions.
>I'm still in awe that starting off your life with massive student loans is a thing.
I'm of the opinion that, at least in the US, we romanticized the idea of "going off to college" to "find yourself". It is assumed to be this huge drug-fueled, party sex orgy that is funded on essentially credit.
That is how it was when I first went away to college in 1994; I think I paid around $3k a year tuition at University of Missouri. I started planning a 529 for my kids this week and was shocked to find that in state tuition here (South Carolina) is $15K a year for just tuition and fees. I'm scared to imagine what it will be in ten years.
You can still find small regional schools around the country which are cheaper, although not if you have to pay out of state tuition. But between rising healthcare costs and rising administrative costs, each of which represent roughly 50% of the increase in college tuition, with the small remainder being states kicking in less per student.
Without a doubt college is a lot more expensive, and it is much harder to find a school doing things cheaper. Which is why my kids will likely just live at home and get their degrees online. They'll miss out on some college experiences which they can then make up for by not being $80k in the hole when they graduate. I mean most kids are on a 25 year payment plan, which is basically their entire working life.
