For black students, a college degree means long-term debt | Hacker News Reader

For black students, a college degree means long-term debt

bostonglobe.com

10 pointsSQL22199 comments

You definitely see this for sure. I advise anyone (minorities in particular) who asks me about college to go to community college. I say this almost irrespective of their high school grades (I actually told someone on college confidential who was valedictorian to go to community college and transfer to USC, which ended up happening for them a couple years later, despite the fact that they were originally rejected).

The Pell grant alone will pay for almost two years of community college plus books. Add the fact that community college is inherently a commuter school and you also have the possibility of working as well.

The reason why I advise minorities in particular to take this path is because they're way more likely to qualify for the Pell grant.

As a final note, I'm very aware that many of these people won't actually transfer or graduate with an associates, which is sad, but at least failing the before mentioned path only results in wasted time and not five figures of debt.

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Unfortunately many of the factors that result in poverty for black students' families also rear their ugly head when said students are in school, preventing them from maximizing the ROI on college.

Going to a cheap school is another very important consideration. You can easily end up with 10x the student loans without gaining much for the cost difference.

I went the community college route, and I don't think I would recommend it.

It was very depressing, and I had to correct multiple mistakes made by my transfer department in order to successfully transfer. If you aren't strongly driven, you could end up in community college for many years without anything to show for it.

Looking back on it now, I would have gladly borrowed another $20k to skip that hardship and go to a good university for a full four years. My car cost more than that. It makes sense to pay for an education that will reap rewards far greater than the tuition fees.

The root problem is that the government is insuring loans for low quality education in terms of college prestige/education and major choice.

I wish I could talk sense into people before they wasted money on college. If you do it right you can get everything paid for like I did through grants, scholarships, and your employer.

Shameless plug, I wrote a book that you can read and learn the first-year science essentials: calculus and mechanics, for the price of a 24 case of beer: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0992001005/noBSguide

You won't get a degree or anything, but the knowledge will last with you longer than the case of beer ;)

Lots of articles blaming the lenders.

Why not blame the schools? They are the ones with the unrealistic cost increases (coupled with a decreasingly relevant product, often times.)

The government should get behind formally endorsed MOOC degrees. Costs will be low!

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