Transy cost about $48K per year including books, room and board...$16K is great, but still leaves a lot to make up.

The good thing about Transy is they do lock in the tuition for 4 years so if you what you sign for your freshmen year is what you pay all 4 years.

Mine saved what they could. All played multiple sports which cuts into available work time. So working 10-15 hours a week during seasons, and 30 or so during summer, your looking at maybe $7-$10k a year gross. Take out day to day expenses (gas, insurance, etc) I’d say most kids are looking at being able to bank $2-$4k a year. If you don’t play sports or get involved in other activities (which colleges and scholarship awards don’t like), maybe you could double that. Still leaves you way short. I basically make my kids responsible for their spending money, and car expenses. Unless a kid takes it slow limiting the number of credits, it’s tough to pay your way through school without any help.

 

My two oldest have held jobs throughought college. My youngest won’t be able too because he’ll be playing a sport. All three ended up with nearly full rides due to academics (and sports for my youngest). Otherwise, college would have been a tough nut even though my wife and I both make pretty good money.

I think you mentioned the real kicker. Colleges don’t look at your work experience, but rather what organizations and activities you were involved in. So yeah it’s nice to be able to save up money, but you will likely get more scholarship money by being focusing on school and being involved.

I have a friend who just bought a house in Lexington so His son, and two friends can live there while going to school. He is charging rent to the friends. It is cheaper than the dorms for them. Maybe something to think about.

Renting a house is definitely the way to go IMO. Significantly cheaper if you are with 6-7 guys/ girls.

If you read their site the wording is "will be considered." Doesn't sound like an automatic.

 

That is good to know as we go thru this.

By the way has any else been on UK’s campus recently? It’s ridiculous. If you question why tuition is so expensive just take a look at the new dorms. The new student center will be open soon as well. If you went to UK 10 years ago I’m not sure you would recognize the campus today.

 

Have you seen NKU or UL?

Same thing.

Friend daughter 4.3 GPA / 33 ACT

$1500 from UK

 

What did UL offer? Usually a lot more.

That’s absurd. With that ACT and GPA UK should be full ride IMO.

 

Nope! Buddy actually called when his daughter applied and had similar numbers. Plus she played HS sports, drama and on student council. He quickly found out his daughter was not as special as he thought she was. They threw out a number of how many kids had same or higher numbers and how much the actually gave and he was humbled and apologized for the tone he started the conversation with.

Have you seen NKU or UL?

Same thing.

Yeah I just used UK as the example because it’s what I’m most familiar with.

Haha nope unfortunately not unusual at all. I had more undergrad debt than some people and combined with the master's my debt total is higher than most, but the average medical school debt is right around $200,000 though. I would assume veterinary school is right there in the same ball park.

 

Can I ask what med schools you're looking at? Just finished with the med school process with my wife at UofL. Four years for a mere $253,000.

I have met with a couple of people from UK Development. They have asked what they can do to improve and get more students. I have told them over and over give more money. They are losing the best to other instate schools like UL, WKU, NKU, etc because they are getting more money. Back in the day I would have loved to go to UK for undergrad but with a 33, 4.0 (they didn't have weighted GPA back then at my HS) all AP/honors clubs etc, Singletary finalist offered less than half the cost to attend. TMC offered full ride. I ended up where it was cheapest. My daughter is in HS and we are looking around some. The liberal arts colleges offer way more money. Heck TMC gives automatic $14,000 if you go to a catholic HS. That brings it right in line with the publics for tuition.

 

Oh and Med school was much more affordable 20 years ago only $88,000 in loans of course my dad bought a house for me to live in to save money and roomates.

NKU is currently $4680 per semester, that would be $9360 for a year.

 

My first year at NKU 89/90 my tuition was $575 a semester I believe. So roughly $1,200 a yr. My daughter will graduate from there this spring and its around $9-10k a yr. She gets scholarship help and gas only accumulated $15k in student loans over 5 yrs so to me that is nothing as far as debt.

 

Being in the mortgage business and working with a ton of 1st time home buyers I am amazed at the amount of student loan debt people accumulate. 25 yr old with $50k-$80k in student loan debt making $40k a yr. I had a young guy who was 30 making $100k at GE but he had $125k in student loan debt. He was paying $964/month ....that is a freaking house payment!!!!

Less and less people will be going to college as long as these trends continue.

 

College tuition and fees are robbery.

 

Brings up a good point, my son attended one yr and dropped out. He learned a trade and is now earning a very nice hourly wage at 23 with no student loan debt. His goal is to eventually run his own business. He learns more listening to podcasts 4-5 hours daily while working his trade than he said he would probably ever learn sitting in college classes. IMO unless you are in college for a specific profession and coupling the class sessions with Co-Op experience you are wasting your money. I know guys in sales who never attended college and have pulled down 6 figures for the past 15-20 yrs. The cost of college has become pathetic and the student loan fiasco us even worse. They give em to anybody and everybody.

I truly don't know how people handle it. We were lucky that all three of ours earned just about full scholarships for one reason or another. They then worked summers and part-time during the school year to pay for their entertainment and such.

I was lucky enough to get paid a few thousand a year to go to college.

 

My wife graduated in December 2015 with roughly $56,000 in student loans. We've got that down to about $15,000 right now. Should be gone completely in the next 2-3 months if everything goes according to plan. The $56K would take us about 12 years if we just paid it back at the normal/required pace. I can only imagine how long loans in the hundreds of thousands would take.

Centre College has been ranked in the top 10 colleges in the country numerous times over for its tuition-to-salary return on investment rate. Forbes and US News, among others.

 

Don’t get me wrong, they’re awesome schools. I’m definitely not discrediting or putting them down. My point is that if you’re going into an industry such as education, or something similar where you’re not going to be making a lot of money, it doesn’t make sense to spend that much on college to me.