School Responsibilities (3 Viewers)

[sfidc3]

That is awesome.

Thanks, I also think we were extremely lucky/fortunate.....but, my simple advice is, if you have the means, make your money work for you....a few hundred a month into an annuity type investment can make a lot of things possible (early retirement, zero debt, etc). It's not rocket science but you have to be disciplined and steady/consistent....

 

[HoustonSaint68]

Agreed. I didnt mean to "poopoo" those that can ( thru means or scholarships ) ...they know their child. Each child is different and its incumbent upon parents to know. But sending your child to Old Miss to obtain a BS in Marketing doesnt make sense to me, especially if they plan to return to Louisiana to ply their trade.

One thing i know about SELA is that A LOT of business is done thru "who you know vs what you know"

And yes, when we first meet a new acquaintance, its still " where did you go to high school"

Good friend was transferred here years ago ( Fed Agent ) - We had a crawfish boil ( neighborhood ) and he couldnt understand when he would meet folks, especially the men, the first question was " where you went to school?" he would reply - University of Maryland. And then get " no man, HIGH SCHOOOL" LOLOL

Yeah, I totally agree -- and that's a big part of the reason I wanted my kids to leave. But many people (and I'm very much including myself here) tend to project quite a bit in this area of life.

I wish I had the opportunity to go out of state rather than "commutering" it at UNO and Loyola with a wife and kid, so I wanted to send my kids out of state for the life experience and to get away from NOLA and Texas.

My eldest didn't want to go out of state at first, then got a full ride at Loyola, then decided at the last minute that he actually did want to go to Berklee in Boston after all (at $50k per back twenty years ago). I said, sorry Charlie, you're going to Loyola. Aaaaand, he ended up traveling the world and living abroad for awhile after graduating.

The youngest turned down his "name" schools when he fell in love with Oregon the first time he stepped onto campus. Less prestige = more scholarship and less debt. Far from home, not knowing a soul there, and conservative by Oregon standards (he's actually fairly liberal), it was an incredible growing experience for him. He made friends for life there, returned to live there at one point, and has also lived abroad.

I guess my point is, we often bring our own baggage to these college decisions for our kids, but if they're good people and you raised them with the right values, they tend to figure out their own sheet just fine.

 

[HoustonSaint68]

That really depends on the individual kid and if they are surrounded by close minded people. New Orleans certainly gives you the opportunity to experience a wide range of people and cultures. It's not like it's the backwater of civilization. So, there are many cultural opportunities here that can't be had in other places. It just depends on of the kid is willing to take advantage of those.

Yeah, we're not in disagreement. I didn't mean provincialism in the pejorative sense of being bourgeois -- more like the parochialism of "why would you want to live anywhere else".

As I referenced, I think NOLA is much more welcoming and cosmopolitan in thought since Katrina but, particularly as a fellow non-Jesuit kid , I was definitely projecting my own biases and desires when working with my kids on their college decisions.

 

[mjcouvi]

Of course there should be a class, or classes, on personal financial management in high school/junior high/middle school.

It should probably be a significant portion of education as long as education is publicly administered. It's one of the most important life-lessons to learn -- more important than any "classic English literature," or learning a 2nd language, or trigonometry, or calculus, or chemistry, or biology, or history, or political science, or psychology, or religion.

Financial literacy deserves more educational focus than really almost anything but the most basic math and language and that's only because basic math and language are a prerequisite for financial literacy.

 

[Saint by the Bay]

Put me in the group who thinks this is a great idea. I taught my kids this at home, but I know it's not something every kid is taught at home.

On colleges, I know people tend to think of big-name universities as being unnecessary, but that's not always true. It depends on your goal. A lot of bigger schools have some amazing alumni organizations. Take Rice, for instance. If you graduate from Rice, and you're unemployed, you just don't want to work because the Rice "network" is incredible. Same with Texas A&M.

None of my kids have attended big-name schools, and I'm glad. However, my son that is graduating this year has been accepted into a top 30 school in his chosen major that also has an amazing alumni network in that field. It's worth it to me to bite the bullet on letting him go there because it's going to make his path out of school so much easier and he'll have tremendous support and contacts that he wouldn't get out of most schools.

You just have to weigh the cost-benefit like in everything else.

 

[HoustonSaint68]

Put me in the group who thinks this is a great idea. I taught my kids this at home, but I know it's not something every kid is taught at home.

On colleges, I know people tend to think of big-name universities as being unnecessary, but that's not always true. It depends on your goal. A lot of bigger schools have some amazing alumni organizations. Take Rice, for instance. If you graduate from Rice, and you're unemployed, you just don't want to work because the Rice "network" is incredible. Same with Texas A&M.

None of my kids have attended big-name schools, and I'm glad. However, my son that is graduating this year has been accepted into a top 30 school in his chosen major that also has an amazing alumni network in that field. It's worth it to me to bite the bullet on letting him go there because it's going to make his path out of school so much easier and he'll have tremendous support and contacts that he wouldn't get out of most schools.

You just have to weigh the cost-benefit like in everything else.

Why don't you just get outta here with that common-sense, one-size-doesn't-fit-all mumbo-jumbo??

 

[St. Widge]

Yeah, we're not in disagreement. I didn't mean provincialism in the pejorative sense of being bourgeois -- more like the parochialism of "why would you want to live anywhere else".

As I referenced, I think NOLA is much more welcoming and cosmopolitan in thought since Katrina but, particularly as a fellow non-Jesuit kid , I was definitely projecting my own biases and desires when working with my kids on their college decisions.

Fair enough. I certainly see some advantages to kids going out of town for college but I think it kind of depends on the kid. Maybe I am projecting because I spent time in Baton Rouge and Gainesville and didn't really feel like I got much of anything life experience wise out of it. Although I guess that might have been different had I gone to the North East or the West Coast.

Still, as with your kids, I think if you get out of college debt free, it gives you a lot more options to travel and see the world since you won't have all that debt and you might be able to take a job that you love/like over a job that just pays more money. So, maybe part of it for me is that I see the debt free as more important than the experiences of college, since the debt I had pretty much so forced me to go to law school and pretty much so forced me to take the highest paying job I could get rather than maybe taking some that might have been more fun and interesting. I just tend to think missing those 4 years of great experiences (to the extent you can't also have great experiences closer to home) is less important than the effect being debt free out of college has on the rest of your life. I honestly know next to nothing about finances and have made a lot of financial mistakes in my life, so I can't really tell my kid how to do all that stuff, but I can make sure she gets done with school without a huge amount of debt.

But, sure, if you can afford it and the kid doesn't have to build up debt, then sure going far away can be a great experience. That being said, I had a lot of fun during my 3 1/2 years at U.N.O.

 

[jrdbrn]

As a former high school teacher, I am going to tell you that financial literacy is discussed in many classes. The kids paying attention are already learning these lessons, the kids not paying attention are not going to learn this lesson just because you mandate it to be taught.


This is "feel good" legislation that will not improve the outcome for at risk students.

Which classes taught financial literacy? I guess I didn't pay attention. Everyone, every year, complains they aren't teaching the skills to prepare kids for the "real world". Legislation is passed to teach these skills, but it's feel good.

LOL.

 

[mjcouvi]

If kids were actually taught money systems, how money works, how it moves in the economy, how it perpetuates inequality with its inception and flow, then there would be little problem with our current civilization. But the kids aren't taught it because their teachers weren't taught before them and few people care to understand, because it is too much a fabric of our present existence. This is a cycle which leads to a general madness when it comes to money.

Really, for the public system to educate based on plainly explaining how money works is too much to ask, I get it. But at least kids could be taught to live intelligently within the system and how to benefit from it as much as possible.

 

[St. Widge]

If kids were actually taught money systems, how money works, how it moves in the economy, how it perpetuates inequality with its inception and flow, then there would be little problem with our current civilization. But the kids aren't taught it because their teachers weren't taught before them and few people care to understand, because it is too much a fabric of our present existence. This is a cycle which leads to a general madness when it comes to money.

Really, for the public system to educate based on plainly explaining how money works is too much to ask, I get it. But at least kids could be taught to live intelligently within the system and how to benefit from it as much as possible.

I think the problem with teaching how money works and really citizenship or Civics is that all have competing ideologies that will ultimately lead to biases in how they are taught. So, unfortunately, whatever is taught will need to be something very neutral like why it's bad to take on debt, why it's good to save money, why you want to invest over the long term, etc.

 

[Boy_of_wonder75]

Louisiana passed similar legislation in 2019.

 

[efil4stnias]

I usually just say "not Jesuit."

I actually got a job like that one time. The guy went to Jesuit and told me he decided to hire me as soon as I said that.

and thats not the FIRST time ive heard that either.


seriously. LOL

 

[HoustonSaint68]

I just tend to think missing those 4 years of great experiences (to the extent you can't also have great experiences closer to home) is less important than the effect being debt free out of college has on the rest of your life. I honestly know next to nothing about finances and have made a lot of financial mistakes in my life, so I can't really tell my kid how to do all that stuff, but I can make sure she gets done with school without a huge amount of debt.

But, sure, if you can afford it and the kid doesn't have to build up debt, then sure going far away can be a great experience. That being said, I had a lot of fun during my 3 1/2 years at U.N.O.

Well, SBTB nails it above -- it's all about the kid. If you've got that kid that's just amazing at X, and expensive school Y will foster that like no other, the debt might be worth it.

I just find it very interesting to read this thread and see others who, to varying degrees, did what I did in projecting my experiences onto my kids' college decisions. That's appropriate in moderation, of course -- for my part though, I was a young parent and so didn't have sufficient self-awareness at the time to see the extent to which I was doing so.

Anyway, I do think this is all related to the original thread topic. A kid that is taught the realities of financial literacy in high school is going to be better able to understand the various factors his/her parents have to consider in a college (or not-college) decision -- as in your case with debt being such a major factor in guiding (or forcing) life choices down the road.

 

[efil4stnias]

I know a kid that went to Ben Franklin, that has a perfect SAT/ACT score with a 3.9 unweighted GPA that couldn't get into multiple schools that weren't even Ivy, Stanford, or M.I.T.

Now you know 2 kids.

Well, 1 minus the 3.9 and perfect ACT//SAT scores....LOLOL.

 

[St. Widge]

Well, SBTB nails it above -- it's all about the kid. If you've got that kid that's just amazing at X, and expensive school Y will foster that like no other, the debt might be worth it.

I just find it very interesting to read this thread and see others who, to varying degrees, did what I did in projecting my experiences onto my kids' college decisions. That's appropriate in moderation, of course -- for my part though, I was a young parent and so didn't have sufficient self-awareness at the time to see the extent to which I was doing so.

Anyway, I do think this is all related to the original thread topic. A kid that is taught the realities of financial literacy in high school is going to be better able to understand the various factors his/her parents have to consider in a college (or not-college) decision -- as in your case with debt being such a major factor in guiding (or forcing) life choices down the road.

Sure. I do think there are some schools that it makes sense to go into some debt to go to if you have to. I know Rice is one of them, but I didn't know that A&M was like that. I also think that's true of M.I.T., Stanford, and some of the Ivy's. Although I have a friend that went to Dartmouth and she said that given the debt, she might have made a different choice. She still gets to say that she graduated from Dartmouth, and there is an alumni association around here, but that name doesn't carry the same weight in New Orleans as it probably would in the North East. I mean, it's not like she went to Jesuit.

But, I guess had she moved back to the North East it would mean more. Problem is that you just kind of never know where life is going to take you.