Before some of you get in your feelings about the title of this article, you have to take a step back and look at this for a different perspective. As someone with two college degrees, I’m just asking you to hear me out. I believe college is a great experience for all adolescents to have. It is a very important time period that molds you into the adult you will become. You will meet great friends, potentially a husband or wife, and may even do a little traveling. I think that is great. But let me tell you what college will not do: MAKE YOU RICH!
1. College prepares you to be an employee
Majority of majors in college prepare you to work for someone else and obey. We all know it is damn near impossible to get rich while working for someone else. If you want to be wealthy, you will have to create a source of income outside of a salary. The reality of the situation is this: If you exchange your time/services for money from a company, you will put a cap on the income you can make. Some of the richest people in the world either dropped out of college or never went to college. That is not by coincidence. Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerburg all dropped out of school to create multi-billion dollar companies. Rich people do not work for money; they generate assets that work for them. If you want to learn how to work for money, go to school. If you want to learn how to work even harder, you should get an MBA. If you want to be rich, you must become an entrepreneur, investor, or both.
2. Cost of tuition
Whoever is in charge of the cost of tuition has lost their entire mind. Not part of it, the entire mind. According to collegedata.com, the cost for one year of tuition and fees varies widely among colleges. According to the College Board, the average cost of tuition and fees for the 2013–2014 school year was $30,094 at private colleges, $8,893 for state residents at public colleges, and $22,203 for out-of-state residents attending public universities. I’m not even going to entertain the cost of private colleges, so lets start with state residents at public colleges.
At close to $9,000, this doesn’t cover room and board, books and supplies, and spending money. So lets call a spade a spade and bump it up to $13,000 a year for a state college. Let’s do the math: $13,000 x 4= $52,000 in student loans. Now lets do the math on paying those loans back in 3o years.
| Loan Balance: | $52,000.00 |
| Adjusted Loan Balance: | $52,000.00 |
| Loan Interest Rate: | 6.80% |
| Loan Fees: | 0.00% |
| Loan Term: | 30 years |
| Minimum Payment: | $50.00 |
| Monthly Loan Payment: | $339.00 |
| Number of Payments: | 361 |
| Cumulative Payments: | $122,041.29 |
| Total Interest Paid: | $70,041.29 |
I don’t know about you, but that is insane. The average salary coming out of school is $30,000. That will not get the job done. When you equal in a car note, apartment, miscellaneous spending, and etc, they can’t afford $339. This leads me into #3.
3. Making that minimum payment
Most of us can’t afford to pay the full amount of what we owe each month for student loans. Therefore we either make the minimum payment or opt deferment/forbearance. The definition of each is below.
What is deferment?
A deferment is a period during which repayment of the principal and interest of your loan is temporarily delayed.
What is forbearance?
If you can’t make your scheduled loan payments, but don’t qualify for a deferment, your loan servicer may be able to grant you a forbearance. With forbearance, you may be able to stop making payments or reduce your monthly payment for up to 12 months. Interest will continue to accrue on your subsidized and unsubsidized loans (including all PLUS loans).
Understand the science.
Deferment can only last so long, and forbearance still requires that you accrue interest on the loan. So both options are like putting a band-aid on a gunshot wound. So you really have to ask yourself, is the cost of college today worth it?
Conclusion
I made great relationships in college that you cannot put a price on. It is advantageous to get as many scholarships and grants as possible. But it is equally important to understand the cost of college and really determine what it is you want out of life. If you have a dream or an idea, do not let it die. There will be people to doubt you, they will always be the closest people to you. If you have know issue with working for someone for the rest of your life, then college is definitely for you. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying you can’t become an entrepreneur while going to college or graduating from college. Just understand that college wasn’t built to teach you to own, it was built to teach you to be a monetary slave.
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