My degree is not worth the debt! - Page 8

Same here. The only good thing is that the hospital I work at started me out with nearly $30/hr as a new RN

CCRNDiva
You are most certainly NOT a person she was talking about. It appears you worked your way through school- kudos to you. I am also a single parent. Not becaue I had a child with someone that did not wnat to be a father but because his father died.

AND I am a single parent that is with hat person. If you want to choose to have a child on your own that is fine with me but don't ask the government to foot the bill for you. OR otherwise, have the government foot the bill for EVERYONE. My friends daughter is STRUGGLING to pay for school while some of her friends that got preg in high school are coasting along on public aid. Not only getting FREE TUITION but also subsidized housing AND VERY CHEAP daycare. These programs are in essence encouraging children to have children. It is hard to look around when you have behaved responsiblity and see the people that have not getting everything FREE.

And dont get me started on how this effects young men. I call NOT FAIR. No free education for them. Why not- they are the ones that are supposed to be paying child support right? Well then if we are giving free education to the girls that get preg in hs why not the boys that father the babies?

The whole thing is crazy. We are now paying little girls to have babies and keep dad AWAY.

I think without this help families would be trapped in a cycle of poverty. I would love to see free education for everyone, but I also believe that single moms should be able to get government assistance to help them get an education. I also think the main point of assisting single moms is to make sure they don't end up on welfare for years and REALLY drain funds.

Misplaced1, how do you know they are coasting by? It is very easy to sit in one's own situation and judge another's. Financial aid is based upon family income period. A child and a mother are a family and a father and child are a family. The fathers would qualify for the same aid if they were custodial parents. I could be married to a man making minimum wage, would that deem me more worthy to receive financial aid? Like I said, life happens. Would you turn down financial aid as a single parent since your child's father is deceased? Any married parent could find themselves suddenly single due to divorce or death and need to pursue an education in order to provide for their family. I didn't plan to be a single parent then and I didn't choose to be one now.

I have yet to meet a single parent in school who did not have to secure student loans as well to pay for their education. I have yet to meet a single parent who chose to become a single parent to get financial aid. Those who you feel are coasting by will have to work hard to balance school and child rearing duties and become contributing citizens upon graduation. I know I did. It bothers me when people assume I had it easy because I was a single parent in college. I guess they would have preferred I sat on welfare and lived in poverty the rest of my life instead of pursuing an education.

The article was about the costs of financing an education and skyrocketing student loans. This is something that most students have to deal with, single parent or not. Let's dialog about the escalating costs of education without disparaging others. We have all come from different walks of life to the nursing profession. This board is for all nurses we should be able to discuss topics without alienating others. I have yet to meet a single parent in school who did not have to secure student loans in addition to grants to pay for their education. Those who you feel are coasting by will have to work hard to balance school and child rearing duties and become contributing citizens upon graduation. I know I did.

debt= 40K after BSN worth it? no. It was only worth it to the presidents and deans who earn ridiculous salaries thanks to FAFSA!

You're assuming that the market won't change while you're in school. How many articles still tout a "nursing shortage?" How many people started nursing school (or computer science programs) when jobs were plentiful, only to graduate and find the job market dried up?

I was encouraged to share my story so here it is again, if you have not read previous posts I will be 70k in debt for my BSN.

My parents are middle class and make enough money so that I do not qualify for any federal grants or scholarships. However they are poor enough that they cannot fund much of my education nor are willing to (I don't blame them).

I went to my private school because they gave me 50% of the cost of tuition in scholarships, which means I pay about $15,000 out of pocket in loans. My state school is also around $15,000/semester and would not offer me any scholarship money, so in hindsight it I guess it didn't really matter what school I attended.

I tried joining the military to help pay my school but I have asthma, which eliminated me before I got in the door.

So, stupidly, I went to my private school, thinking that I was going to be a doctor. Well reality set in after a few years and I switched to nursing, adding an extra year to my college education.

Without scholarships or grants I was forced to fund most of the difference of tuition in federal and private loans. It was a terrible mistake that haunts me and sits in the back of my mind as I slave away at my two jobs (internship and a CNA).

No I never went to New Zealand or bought a new sports car. I live in a small apartment with my boyfriend and have a 15 year old car and a 6 year old laptop to my name. I don't have a television, smart phone, fancy clothes, game stations, DVD's, cable, fake nails, nothing. I live frugally and probably will for a long time. In my early life my family was poor and I am happy to have a roof over my head and a chance at a good job.

Do you mind me asking which private school you went to? I am currently deciding between a Ca State School versus a private school...

The market will continue to change year after year, but taking out a $250,000 loan to pay for a Master Degree in Social Work like Matthew Eggen does not make sense. I can pretend to know whats in the future all I want but will it happen, nobody knows for sure. However I can use data available to me to day and plot the most likely event and make a decision on what course of action to follow. Based on current data from the Bureau of Labor and statistics highest pay for MSW is $74,040 for the top 10 percent ( http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos060.htm#earnings ).

Spending $250,000 for a job that pays $74,040 doesn't make sense in my book, the return on investment is too slow and you would be feeling the pinch of the interest rate every month. If your lucky and you interest rate is only 3.0% your monthly would still be $1,054 a month over a 30 year term ( http://www.finaid.org/calculators/sc...anpayments.cgi ). Set loan interes to 3.0%, loan fees to 0, loan term 30 years, minimum payment to $50, masters degree, and 6 years in college. It calculates how much interest you r gonna pay off and how much you should be making a year to be able to repay the loan.

With that kind of money Matthew might as well went to Pharmacist School at University of the Pacific , which is a private institution and I bet you going to a state school would be cheaper. Pharmacists can easily make 6 figures by the end of it all, not to mention have a Doctorate. How did this guy think he was going to repay this loan with a job that pays so little?
People need to live in reality.

Money isn't everything in life, but life sure does suck when the bills pile up. People like to stay warm when it's snowing outside. They also like to have clothes on their backs, food in the fridge, electricity to run the fridge, fuel in their car, etc etc.

I cannot stress enough about financial responsibility. Do your research on your career path. Will taking this much money be financially justified? The internet is a great tool, I did all that research above in 10 minutes. Imagine what would happen people spent an hour breaking down the data.

CCRN diva

Did you read my response? NO ONE is TALKING about YOU. No one is talking about you.

And yes I know they are coasting because many of them dont come to the gen ed classes and brag about how they do these scams. And I dont know one of the people on the baby scholarship that has a student loan. I grauated recently. Perhaps when you were in school things were different. .

I am an older person. I had a few friends that got preg in high school. How are they doing? I cant think of one that is "in the cycle of poverty" They all rose to the occasion as it appears you did= they are doing just fine. And none of them got a free childcare, education etc etc. Sometimes having your back aginst the wall is a good thing. I dont think anyone wants a mom and child to starve but to show some responsiblity for caring for yourself and your child will make you a better person and one your child can admire.

I have nothing against help. Help FOR ALL is a wonderful thing. Help only for certian groups of people be they male female with or without kids is not cool. Its certainly not fair to the girls that did not get pregnant in high school or the boys that did not get them pregnant. Where is their helop? Why does my relative have to work a hundred jobs while going to school when if she just had had a baby she could stick the child into daycare and go to her classes and take the rest of the day to study in peace or hang out. Menwhile my relative is working round the clock, exhausted and trying hard not to accumulate debt. All because her parent's make too much money to qualify for any free help even though they came very close to loosing thei house last year. In the end though she is going to be the one with the work expereince.

If we are going to start handing out free education it should be merit based and also given to people that have proven they can actually hold a job. Too many people are getting their way paid for college classes that could not even hold a job at walmart. What in the world are they going to do with their associates in management when they cant hold a job?

Why are you defending these extreme handouts to specifically children that have children when you apparently did not receive this? When I was young if you decided to have a baby when you were young you had to step up and figure out how to clothe and feed it yourself and if you couldnt then your parents had to help you. This was a BIG deterent to having multiple children you could not possibly afford without help from the government. Because your parents were not going to be real happy paying for three children you had before you were 20 by irresponsible men.

So you think its fair for taxpayers to pay for all these little girls having babies and getting the baby scholarshipl? Work at a school sometime and listen in. The reasons they are getting pregnant are attrocious. They want to hold onto a boyfriend, get back at a boyfriend, little girl stuff. When we stop paying little girls to have babies they will stop having so many of them. Perhaps after one they will think hey this is tough living with mom and dad, no money having a kid. Maybe then they will face reality and wait until they are ready to be moms.

Paying them to have babies just makes other little girls look around and say hey thats the way to get treated like an adult and get my way paid. Again no one is saying you did this. You stepped up and helped yourself. But honestly that is not what is going on now for the most part from what i see.

I certainly am not judging anyone. If you reward people to do something they are going to do it. And right now we have decided as a country to pay teenage girls to have babies. With the economy in the crapper this way of earning a living is just going to look more and more advantageous. Most the girls are just not ready to be single parents at this age and neither are the boys. And that really my biggest beef