An ex had a grandfather who put himself through school, including dental school and the extra 3 years for a specialty in orthodontics, working a summer job.

And he complains about his grandkids needing to go into debt. They don't realize how the world's changed in the last 50 years...

I have three children who have completed 2-1/2 bachelors degrees in the last 6 years. Within the next three years I expect that to be 3 bachelors and one masters.

All of this will have been achieved with zero debt and no financial assistance from parents.

Each child is expected to put in 1200+ hours of employment per year of school. This grosses them $12K+ of salary even as freshmen. They choose schools that cost < $6000/year to attend. They pick up some scholarship money to help when they can. They live in cheap apartments with lots of roommates, and they cook their own food.

University of Chicago tuition costs >$50K/year. [0] UofI-Chicago runs ~$17K. [1] Prairie State College in Chicago costs < $5K/year[2]

Here's your first college test: Which one offers a better value?

If you can't afford food, rent, and tuition for $15K/year, you're not looking hard enough. If you think you should spend $75K/year right out of high school... college may not be a good idea for you.

This is not so different from my experience decades ago. I used to opt out of traveling home for Thanksgiving because I could work double shifts during the holiday. Every hour over 1200 helped to pad things.

I recently recommended to a high school student that they enter an essay contest worth $1000. I thought they could win. They thought it was too much effort. They might burn up 4 hours! A loan application only takes 30 minutes.

[0] https://collegeadmissions.uchicago.edu/cost-aid [1] https://admissions.uic.edu/undergraduate/tuition-financial-a... [2] http://prairiestate.edu/apply-reg-pay/tuition-and-fees/index...

I dunno, if you can get into an ivy or into a med school you should go. It'll pay off.

One of my children was recruited by Harvard. Their recruiters open with a line very similar to what they put on their website [0]: "70% of Harvard students receive some form of financial aid. A Harvard education is more affordable than a state school for 90% of American families."

My general rule of thumb is that if it takes more than 4 clicks to discover the tuition costs of a school, they are embarrassed. If they are embarrassed it means that even they can't justify the value proposition.

With some digging I see that Harvard claims [1] annual tuition > $50k. Before they tell you that, they promise you a $67K scholarship.

Given those numbers, you can actually make money if you can live for less than $17K/year after tuition. So, yeah, it might really pay off.

Oh, Harvard is also very clear that after you graduate you owe them a lifelong contribution. There is no question that they are expecting 7 figures back. But it seems reasonable that they get you the clerkship or whatever first that puts you in a position to pay back that kind of money.

[0] https://college.harvard.edu/admissions [1] https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/net-price-calculat...

My grandfather put himself through dental school at the University of Toronto in the '20s by doing traveling magic shows in the summer.

I put myself through a state CS program in the '90s by bartending and selling pot, while guiding whitewater trips (and selling pot) in the summer.

Things have changed, but not that much.

That's super-interesting to me because I came out of undergrad with $0 in debt... and I came out of dental school with $280,000 in debt.