CSotD: Lofts have become even loftier
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Speed Bump offers a heapin' helpin' of food for thought.
It's well-timed. Though "back to school" for most colleges was several weeks ago, and cutting the check was quite a bit earlier than that, the economy remains center stage. And this is a nice riff on the quickly-becoming-tiresome gags about recent graduates living at home.
The last time student debt came up here, it sparked quite a bit of back-and-forth in the comments, and one of the things I had said in the original post but which was strongly reinforced by readers was that kids shouldn't be fools about this sort of thing. There are strategies that can readily help you avoid getting in over your head.
True enough. And I remember when one of my sons' friends got into a solid, prestigious liberal arts college, only to have her parents look over the financial aid package and say, "No, way, kiddo." She went to a state school and today has a good career doing big-league creative work that she loves. That's a happy ending in my book and also evidence that, while it's great to have good mentors, top-notch drive and determination are bigger factors than top-notch classroom exposure.
But kids are kids, and even grownups can be lured into financial disaster.
Exploiting young adults is nothing new: When I was in school 45 years ago, we were beseiged by credit card companies that wanted to get us hooked on spending money we didn't have.
Their approach was a little undeveloped back then. They would send credit cards to students without requiring them to apply for them, the theory being that, when you got a card in the mail, you would start using it and would become hooked. And some students did.
Other students would sell them on the street and then, when the bills began to arrive, would shrug and claim no knowledge of these unsolicited mailings. Since they'd never agreed to pay for anything, the credit card companies were out of luck.
(Historical/technical note: There were no computers in stores in those days, and charge slips were mailed in. Each month, merchants were given new little pulp booklets of bad card numbers and were supposed to look up each charge before allowing it. If you bought a set of tires, they would. If it were only a tank of gas, they usually wouldn't bother. So, as long as you didn't get greedy or keep stiffing the same merchant over and over again, you could keep a bogus card going almost indefinitely.)
The other thing about being a freshman 45 years ago was that, at least at the private college I attended, we were required to live on campus, which restriction we objected to. The rule changed after my sophomore year and the resulting mass exodus to even flea-bag apartments brought about improvements, as the school suddenly had to compete with reality.
I'd lived in a 7-by-14 double with a linoleum floor freshman year, and, by the time I graduated, that room was a carpeted single, and students could also choose to live in one of the new high-rises, which were even nicer. They'd improved the food somewhat as well.
The other factor to remember was that, in those days, male students had two options: The College of Your Choice or The University of Southeast Asia, and I suspect that schools became motivated to market themselves a little harder once "more attractive than getting your ass blown off" was no longer on the table.
However it came about, schools have certainly ramped up the quality-of-life factor, and, if I had a kid going to college today, I'd be tempted to move in, too.
The schools have gone from putting microwaves in the dorm lounges and a Subway franchise in the student union to playing a full-out upgrade game, and it's no different than the car dealer who explains how, for only another $XX per month, you could have the moon roof, or the computer dealer who says how much more speed and memory you get for only another $YY.
In this case, if you want to see how some kids are being lured into more debt than necessary, check out this slide show of dormitories at public universities that I ran into yesterday.
My reaction was, "Heck, if I lived there, I'd never leave the building."
Which in turn reminded me of this "Helen, Sweetheart of the Internet" strip.
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