How do Americans afford to go to uni?

[Snickersnack1]

I’ve just been reading this: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/student/advice/finding-your-university-uk-versus-us

It says:

Students apply to 6-8 colleges, with each application costing up to $75. So you could easily be looking at $400+ in fees just to apply.

Their college courses last 4 years, and can cost over $30,000 per year!! And there is no student finance, they have to organise their own loans, so with interest rates etc.

HOW is any student from an average home finding £120,000 to pay for uni? And that’s just undergraduate, it’s more again if you do postgrad, which is a must for professions like medicine or law etc.

I know that our students here leave with high levels of ‘debt’ but it is atypical debt that you don’t have to pay if you’re not earning and is written off eventually.

Imagine over £100,000 of actual debt upon graduation, before you’ve even started your career. How do American graduates even afford to live? How do they manage to save and buy a home?

I know it must be possible, but I just don’t see how?

It is cripplingly expensive, but there are options as others have stated above. If you are a long-serving military member you get college benefits that can be passed along to your kids; I imagine lots of people sign up to the military for that reason. Also, while students can only get small federal loans (approx 30k total for the 4 years) parents can take out additional loans (parent plus) or co-sign with their child for more loans, which is what most people I know have done.

in high school, kids can also do dual enrollment to gather college credits which gives them a head-start on college. Some kids also attend local community college to get their first 2 years of college (which is mostly less specialist ‘general ed’ courses) cheaper before transferring to a 4 year college to finish. Some big employers (like Starbucks) also offer tuition benefits and credits. Parents can also deduct education costs on their tax return, and in some states, saving in a 529 (college savings plan) can be a tax deduction.

All that said, it is significantly more expensive than the UK. DS plans to go into trades rather than college and I’m thankful we won’t have to find that much money.

Also remember salaries are much higher in the US.

I'm thinking of medicine which is my field. I'm an NHS consultant and our salary range is: £109-139K

The US range (from the American medical association)is: Anesthesiology average salaryIn 2023, the average anesthesiology physician salary was $462,506. The average resident/fellow salary was $61,653.70+*.

This

I worked all through high school and university in the US, around 25-30 hours a week while doing more than a full load of classes. It’s hard but doable, and expected. That was just to pay my living expenses and for textbooks, tuition was through student loans that took me 20 years to pay back.

Lots of kids in the US are extremely pressurised to get academic or sports scholarships to help pay their way, which is why they do so many extracurricular activities in high school, to make their applications stand out. My BFF’s niece in the US who recently started uni on a scholarship worked 20 hours a week while in high school, played two sports at state championship level, was on the academic honour roll, volunteered at an animal shelter, and did at least 3 other activities like drama, Spanish club, etc.. to ensure she got paid tuition, which her parents really pushed her to do as they couldn’t afford to pay it for her and she didn’t want to be saddled with 100k in debt. She did it but had a mental health breakdown afterwards from sheer exhaustion, as do many of these kids.

The ‘American work ethic’ and hustle culture sounds great from the outside but it is breaking people and driving a lot of the anger, division, poor health, addictions, and debt crisis in the middle class there.

Huge student loans. It cost me $75k to do a 2 year master’s degree.

I came out making $30k a year and my loan repayments at one point were $1100 a month, which was about equal to what I made after taxes each month. Lender was like 🤷🏻‍♀️ not our problem. Cost of living is much higher in the US in general, never mind healthcare costs.

In my field, the pay is probably a little bit better in the US, but it is quickly eaten up by all the costs above. At the moment, it’s also hugely unstable. I’ve lost count of the friends who have lost their jobs since Trump starting destroying the government. All federally funded scientific and diplomatic roles. I’m very grateful despite my expensive education that I got out, live in the UK where cost of living is better and there are far better public services and job security for me.

But if you're earning in the region of a million dollars per annum that's not an unreasonable loan to be servicing.

Very few doctors in their 30s earn a million dollars a year though. I know a fair few and they earn more like $300-500k pa. However their student loans aren’t quite as high as $700k either.

Cost of living in the US is definitely higher than in the UK, but it is more than made up for by higher salaries. I emigrated from the UK last year due to stagnant wages and almost doubled my salary (same role at the same company). My experience so far is that everything here is 20-50% more expensive than in London except groceries which are double. There are healthcare costs but I have very good health insurance through my employer. Taxes are slightly lower.

Therefore I am better off here overall (so far).

I’m from the US and I’m just curious as to how different it is in the UK from the US as far as how getting into in/college works, then the salary and housing ratio is. Here in the northeast a yearly income of mid 70’s (for one) is considered middle class and that’s working your butt off, unless someone corrects me. Total income of a household is over 160,000 a year, which is believed to be doing decent, again, someone correct me if I’m wrong. Is it that different from the UK?

Some people join the military in the USA as you can do a degree while you are serving . I believe you have to join up for a period of time to be able to do this .

Medical students in the uk graduate with a similar debt. It’s too hard to work much as they’re expected to do long hours in undergrad training. I don’t know how they cope without parental support.,

As the first poster said, £120k student loan debt in USA vs starting salaries of £125k
Vs £40k debt in the UK with starting salaries of £25k

Speculate to accumulate - if you know you can get a good job out of it its worth investing in your education.

The more relevant q would be how they get anyone to go into public sector roles which, while better paid than the UK don't have that same advantage. Why would anyone be a teacher etc if they had that much debt?

The sport my dc in is very aimed at getting a scholarship…

however having spoken to many US coaches, the cost of doing the sport probably balances out the scholarship!

I know many advise now that if you want to guarantee money for college, ditch the sport and put the £££££ you save on training costs into a college fund.

i know if I added up what we’d spent on dc’s sport over 10 years, it would easily cover uni costs.

obviously uni is not why we put dc in sport, but some do, apparently. I will say after the uk mentality and dealing with the politics of Team GB I think having the NCAA option is much healthier. I know so many athletes the GB system broke, not only physically but mentally, that are thriving in the positive college arena.

American here. My adult children used a combination of savings, money from working, scholarships and loans, and I've been on mumsnet long enough to know that that is fairly similar to the UK. I didn't read the article, but if it said that there is "no student finance" then you need better sources, because every uni has a financial aid office to help students get the money they need.

In Florida where I live, students under age 18 who can handle the coursework can start uni for free. Both my children took free uni courses from our local uni from ages 15-18 and graduated with a 2-year degree, called an Associates Degree. During these years they earned "Bright Futures," a Florida state scholarship plan.

My son went on to a large Florida university and used his scholarship to pay for classes and worked delivering pizza to earn his spending money. We bought him the car he used. In his final year he had a paid internship and he saved money so that he paid off his $16,000 student loan upon graduation (BS in Computer Science) before interest started accruing. He works as a software developer for a company whose name you would recognize.

My daughter used her Bright Futures and a scholarship to attend a private technological university. She lived at home to save money and used my car to get to classes. After graduation she went to medical school in another part of Florida. We paid for her car. She borrowed money for her education and living expenses through the medical school, but also got quite a lot of scholarship money. Upon graduation she started residency (jr. doctor) earning $65,000/yr. Because of covid, interest on her loans did not begin accruing, but she began paying what she could. She now has $180,000 in debt but as a full-fledged doctor (consultant) she is earning over $300K and sending huge payments toward her debt each time she is paid.

If you go to college in state it's much cheaper than UK universities. I believe on average British students pay the most in the world! The US is expensive if you go out of state or to a private college, but even then they have much more generous bursaries than the UK does.

My parents saved for each of us from birth. Some college savings accounts match up to a certain percentage per year of what's been deposited, which helps. But to get those savers you need to have a great credit rating.

I started working from 14. There is no cap on the amount of hours you can work during term time. Some weeks I worked 16hrs others up to 30 ish and all the hours I could in the summer holidays which are circa 9 weeks long plus babysitting /pet sitting. When I was older I also shovelled snow and raked leaves did yard/garden work on top as well. This also counted as some volunteering and community work if I could get the neighbours to sign off.

Community service is huge plus and pretty much an expectation. It counted for credits and grants and also made you more appealing to schools and employers. I primarily volunteered at an old age home. To be honest- I was too young and many are who do that type of volunteer work. It can be pretty ugly.

I also played baseball and basketball but never made higher than district/county. It was more for again credits and appeal. I wasn't good enough for a scholarship and was well aware of it.

When I applied there was a cap (this was well over 20 years ago) 4 state colleges/universities and/or up to 6 nationwide. Most applied to around 6 overall. Each university had an application fee which I don't recall what they were as my parents paid for them.

My parents were/are considered well off but even so my dad worked 2 jobs and sometimes 3. Mom was a stay at home parent for the majority of my childhood and teens.

Paying for university was a lifestyle in a way. Everything and all roads led to keeping costs down and loans to a minimum.

I was accepted to 4 out of 6 that I applied to. One included a free ride essentially only costs would have been housing after year 2 as they only had on campus accommodation for the first 2 years unless you made it in to a sorority or funded club which provided housing.

I didn't end up going at all. Instead I had a job offer from a friend who's parents had a business in London. I took that and the rest is history. Been in the UK ever since.

If they go to a uni in their own state it is cheaper.

Several posters have made similar comments. But an important clarification is needed here. All states have state universities. But all states also have private universities and colleges within the state. It's less expensive to attend the state universities because they are subsidized by the state and offer "in state" tuition to residents of the state. Some private institutions may offer a similar reduction for in state students but many do not.

Also some states offer reciprocity with neighboring states for state universities. My granddaughter is attending a state university in a state other than the one she lives in, but her parents are paying the in state tuition rate because of this reciprocity.

How do you know the difference between state, private, public etc?

what is the difference? All our uni’s are the same I think?

State and public are the same, and their websites will tell you what they are. Private ones tend to be higher profile like the Ivys, there are lots of small "liberal arts" private universities too.
The UK has 1 private university i know of, University of Buckingham.

Both of my kids enlisted in the Navy, served 6 years each and now have their college paid for (my son is working on a degree in engineering, my daughter (who was an Arabic linguist in the Navy) is obtaining her degree in Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies. Along with having their college tuition paid, they also receive an amount for some living expenses (called "Basic Allowance for Housing" or BAH).

My husband's job assisted in his tuition. I went to business school and had a grant and a small loan.

Thank you.

another question- where does “community college” fit in?

Community college earns a 2-year associate's degree. Some students take their general education requirements at a community college (because they are much less expensive), then transfer those credits to a university to finish off a 4-year degree.

I don’t think 30K is the norm, it must be much more than that on average. My friend’s son just started at uni and it’s more than that for a state school.

im American and went to university in the states. I went to community college for a couple years and had two years at university to graduate. Worked full time the entire time. My brother worked part time and finished with a masters degree and around 200K in debt to pay.

529 plans.

DH and I max out our contributions each year in our state (10kpa per child), his parents do the same in their state (not sure what their max is). We started the year they were born, so each child will have around $180k from us and I don't know what from grandparents. We will probably make them earn the rest even though we could pay it out of pocket - keeps them out of trouble and never too early to learn to pay your way. We expect they will do undergrad, post-grad and maybe a year or more of vocational/professional college.

This is money you put into the plan from pre-tax income. It can only be applied towards tertiary+ education, and only for tuition (Trump tried to change that in his first term, haven't heard anything about trying again this time).

There are equivalent tax-free savings plans for all sorts of things: health insurance, home improvements, pensions, you name it. It's one of the way the rich stay rich and the poor - who have nothing to save - stay poor. The Republicans and Democrats alike vote along these lines, Bernie Sanders and AOC etc are lone voices in the wilderness. It's very culturally very different to the UK.

Tax-free saving is not just about the rich staying rich, it really benefits middle earners too. I’m far from rich, but I benefit greatly from being able to have a HSA for example, and therefore paying my health insurance deductible from pre-tax income. It is undeniably the case that’s it’s generally better to be poor in the UK than in the US, but it’s definitely better to be middle income in the US than in the UK. That’s why you don’t tend to hear the phrase “squeezed middle” as often in the US.