Comparing that to my alma mater (Johns Hopkins), a private university, your loans work out to more than my total cost for tuition for four years (2004-2008). Even looking up their current rates, the average four year tuition after student aid is ~130k. Without any student aid, it hits ~$200k.
Compare that to UMBC right up the road. Full-time tuition for a year is under $12k, plus a few thousand in books and fees leaves you at less than half of your private schools number less financial aid. And everyone gets aid if you're instate in MD.
Go to public schools, live at home, get out with little debt. It's really not a difficult choice, and it gets even easier if you know about the existence of community colleges.
Stop anchoring impressionable kids to ridiculous tuition numbers.
Edit: the highest average in-state tuition is Vermont with just over $17k. If you're willing to go to a state school, you can do it for under $80k for 4 years.
Hah, no kidding. For what its worth, I grew up in a family that moved often, and was not technically in-state anywhere. If I had known that my family would also move to Maryland, College Park would have been probably where I would have aimed for. Younger siblings attended there, and with the Maryland scholarships essentially graduated debt free.
I realize now that I wasn’t explicit, but implied by “in state” is going to a public university (since those are typically where in state tuition is different than out of state tuition).
Really this would have been great to know from my high school advisor to be able to convince my parents to let me consider other types of universities.
Are you talking about the squat toilets?
Because the other smart toilets are very nice, even if you don't use the cleaning options, having a heated seat in the winter is amazing.
Squat toilets are the best. So much nicer to poop on than your bog-standard porcelain throne. Aside from the pooping benefits, they also keep you limber by forcing you into a deep squat on a regular basis.
So far every job I've joined since finishing school in 2012 I've been the "smartest person in the room". It's been incredibly frustrating to not have peers to learn from technically.
It was so bad that I left my city (Recruiters and the jobs felt very toxic to me) and became an expat, started self learning what I wanted until I could consult enough to sustain myself.
Now I joined a large company for a large project in asia and I'm STILL missing people I can learn from.
I'm reaching my 30's, and have only worked at small to medium places with near zero mentorship.
Some people would question your experience, and there is a chance that you are failing to appreciate others.
However you may also accidentally be the big fish in a small pond. If that's the case try to get to the bigger pond. If you get to one of the big tech companies and find even there nobody is competent enough to mentor you then your either a genius or oblivious.
Thanks, you're 100% correct and when I recently explained my history to startups out here they have the exact same reaction.
I've been jumping from small pond to small pond until now.
This large company's project is outsourced to over 30+ people where none of the devs have even touched React and come from an Enterprise Java background. It's 6+ months and late, when really the product would take a team of about 8 to do in 4 months. I come in and suddenly I'm tech lead managing and mentoring others.
I understand even this post feels like I'm unappreciative but it wasn't until two months ago that I had a teammate I could feel happy working with rather than me mentoring them.
I don't consider myself great or a genius, but this pain of knowing you can only teach yourself so much has bothered me since my first job.
I was serious, if this is actually the case you literally have to go where people of talent congregate. As you increase in skill those places become fewer - you may have to move.
Went in state,
lived at home (commuted 2-2.5~ hours twice a day)
lived cheap (no real spending outside of school bills)
Had scholarships which knocked off 50% of the sticker price.
After all that, and the high interest rates at the time on my initial loans it was north of 200k.
My parents helped with food and rent (living at home) but everything else I took a loan off.
I considered my loans heavily predatory and wish I could have done things differently.