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In-state price at a good state school is about $22k/year with room and board.

Figure you work a minimum wage 40 hours a week for 12 weeks during the summer. There's $3480. Now, figure you average 10 hours a week for the other 40 weeks of the year. There's $2900. Figure you're an outstanding student, so you got a one-time $2000 scholarship payout from winning a bunch of awards in high school.

There's a good chance at many large state schools that, even if you're focused, you'll need an extra semester or two due to limited course availability. Not counting the possibility of recovery from a leave of absence related to (mental) illness or family emergency, etc. Let's say you do one summer semester and it costs exactly half of a traditional year's net price.

So we're looking at:

+ $99k in bills and spending - $10k for 3 summers of work - $13k for 9 semesters of work - $2k in total merit scholarship payout.

That leaves us with a $74k education. If mom and dad aren't buying, then there's $75k in principal. At 6.8% over 10 years (the federal government's deal, but it's capped; your actual rate from the private sector will be worse) that's $102k in payments.

That's for someone who did the "responsible" thing: went to state school, got scholarships, and worked continuously.

Now imagine that you go to a private school where the price after need-based financial aid is in the $30k-$40k range. Or, worse, that you go to private school and your parents are rich, so you qualify for no need-based financial aid at all, but your parents still don't want to fund your education. Then you're looking at $60k/year.

See where this is going? It's easier than you might think.

Heh, the comments are piling up, and I'm willing to admit maybe my experience isn't the norm, but what you're saying does make sense.

Like I said though, I know a bunch of post-grad folks who aren't hitting $100k. It's just a big clash with what I've seen, to hear 100k after just four years.

The people you're thinking of, like most of the people I know, either have

1) Families that have contributed $60k+

2) Families that are poor enough that financial aid has contributed $60k+.

I'm guessing that anyone with $100k in debt has neither of those things.

And the gap between (1) and (2) is most of the middle class.

The other thing that matters is when you got your degree. Graduating even 5 years ago means you've likely had to take on less debt than someone who graduated this year.

That's how fast tuition is rising.

I found this a little bit hard to believe. I managed to graduate from a state school with no debt at all (neglible scholarships, small amount of savings, worked as an RA for a bit and did a decently paying 3 semester co-op).

Surely my school isn't THAT expensive. Whoa. Turns out it is. My school estimates a total annual cost as $23k and this is a public university that's regularly listed as one of the "best value colleges." http://financialaid.ncsu.edu/cost-of-attendance/cost-of-atte... http://www.princetonreview.com/best-value-colleges.aspx

I have to think some of that has to do with the exploding cost of tuition and fees (I started 10 years ago), but I can't be exactly sure. Thanks for the post.

I went to a school (Middlebury) with pretty generous financial aid and ended up owing ~80K in student loans after four years. I picked Middlebury in part because they were the only school of their type to offer full need-based financial aid. For reference, I graduated in 1997.

100K in American undergraduate debt unfortunately does not sound surprising.

I went to a state school over 15 years ago, and while I haven't done the math, I'm almost positive my total expenses over four years exceeded 100k even then. I was lucky enough to have money from my parents, good paying jobs (for a student) and some scholarships and grants, so I walked away with only about $20k of debt. But I think these days it would be really easy to rack up $100k.

It's pretty easy! It's not hard to find schools where tuition and fees end up at about $20k/yr. Housing in many college towns is expensive, so that's another $5k/yr. Then there's normal cost of living, so lets call it another $2k/yr. Multiply by 4, take interest of lets say 3% into account, and hey presto, you're quite a ways over $100k!

The even sadder thing is that those are fairly conservative numbers. Out of state tuition and fees at many state schools can get up to the $30k range (I went to CU-Boulder, which is apparently up to $33,151 now), $5k for housing is cheap, $2k for expenses is pretty low, and 3% interest is very low.

The average amount of student debt from undergrad is $33k.

How you go to three times that is difficult to comprehend. I'm not doubting the veracity of what he's written, but it's just surprising how different his experience is from what I'm familiar with.

* Most parents with means contribute several tens of thousands, at least. If yours don't, they come from debt.

* Financial aid formulas at excellent schools that are just a step or two below the Ivy league have what we call an "awkward middle." There are lots of rich families for whom $60k/yr is not a significant hardship. There are also a fair number of poor families whose children get full rides (+ allowances for personal expenses.) Where you see huge debt is in the middle class.

Expected Family Contributions for middle and especially upper middle class students (let's say $60k-$100k household income in Midwestern suburbia) are often technically possible, but not actually feasible. The number that Financial Aid gives you will be significantly less than $60k. It might be $50k, or $40k, or even $30k.

But that might selling the house, gutting retirement accounts, forgoing college for younger siblings, or even a combination of the above. So the gap between "actual family contribution" and "expected family contribution" means you will need to cover the difference with loans.

* Financial aid roughly correlates to endowment which roughly correlates to prestige. At lower-prestige but still decent private schools (NYU, GW, etc.) it's not remotely difficult to rack up $200k in your 4 years.

* Some people have trouble adjusting to college life, or to the stress of later semesters. An aborted semester due to (potentially involuntary) leave of absence to deal with mental illness, etc. is really fucking expensive, as is an extra year to make up for classes you failed or a change in major. But if you've already paid in $60k, you're not going to just walk away and write it off; you're going to keep paying whatever it takes to finally get a degree that's worth something.

You're all over me with this one! :D

So what you're more or less saying is there's a sort of middle class gap where aid doesn't cover, and parental income can't contribute enough, so the student is forced to go wholly interest-based debt for their education?

Yikes, that's rough. You're right though, all the folks I know apparently fall on either side of that middle income gap.

accept it and move on. Most of my friends have over 100k worth of debt from undergrad so it seems pretty normal to me. I'm sure your familiar with a lot of things that are different for most people.

> Your first step should be to get a job, and QA sounds like a great place for you. You'd be surprised how easy it is to move out of QA and into dev if you can demonstrate aptitude for development tasks. Many people got their foot in the door this way, including myself.

I suspect scobar's main problem is location. I know most of the West coast focuses more on experience and attitude. The Midwest, East Coast, and South East not so much unless he's close to a big metro (like NY, Boston, Austin, the triangle, or Atlanta) or his degree or course of study was more technical. He may have to move.