There’s a lot Kristin Bolig has to be nervous about now that she’s graduated college. Will she find a job both satisfying and well-paying? Will making friends be easy? East Coast, West Coast or somewhere in between? Buy or rent?

One thing is overshadowing the typical worries that come with beginning a new chapter in life. More than anything, the Marywood University graduate worries about her student loans.

She is not alone.

The average college student will owe $19,300 by the time he or she graduates, and nearly two-thirds of students who graduated in the 2003-2004 school year used loans to pay for the cost of college, according to an Associated Press report.

College tuition increases have far outpaced federal grant increases over the past several years, and the College Board reports that the average cost of one year at a four-year private college was more than $29,000 this year.

Terri Stocki, an adviser with Consumer Credit Counseling Service of Northeastern Pennsylvania, said the cost of college poses an undue burden on many young adults, not equipped to deal with the complexities of loans and financial planning right out of high school.

On top of college loans, too many students use credit cards indiscriminately while in college, she said.

“They’re in debt before they even start,” she said. “I’m

not sure what the answer is there. I don’t know where it’s going to end. The prices are going up and up.”

When Tiffany Diehl, 24, went to Keystone College, in La Plume, in 2000, she said her freshman year cost her about $18,000 between tuition, room and board, and books. The price went up to nearly $25,000 by the time she graduated in 2004. Two years later, Ms. Diehl finds herself living with her mother in Williamsport.

With an associate’s degree in accounting and a bachelor’s degree in human resource management, Ms. Diehl works a full-time job making about $23,000 a year. She is only paying interest on about $45,000 in student loans, she said. Moving out and finding a job in a bigger city would be nice, but after student loans, a car payment and minimum payments on six credit cards, there’s nothing left for a savings account.

On top of student loans, Ms. Diehl owes about $14,000 on her car and credit cards.

“I think everyone should have the college experience, but knowing what I know now, I think I would have waited and saved up,” Ms. Diehl said, admitting she didn’t much consider the cost of college when she decided where she wanted to go her senior year in high school.

Unlike Ms. Diehl, Ms. Bolig said she knew when she applied at Marywood University it would involve a lot of debt.

“I understand that paying for college means debt,” the graphic design major said. “Now I’m just looking at how much I’m going to need to get by. My parents have always worried about money; I don’t want to have to. I want that comfort.”

Typical aspirations like marriage and a family have, for Ms. Bolig, taken a backseat to making loan payments of about $400 a month. She says she doesn’t want to “burden” a mate with her problems.

“My parents didn’t have the stress of college loans. My dad was military and my mother’s parent worked at a university,” she said. “They don’t understand how much of a worry it is . . . My mom always said there’s good debt and bad debt. No debt is good.”

Lisa Zager had it easy. The recent graduate of Marywood got an academic scholarship that covered much of her schooling costs, but said she sees many of her friends under enormous financial pressure.

Many are delaying loan repayment with graduate school, she said.

“It becomes a, ‘What do I need to do?’ It’s painful for some people, how much money they have to take out,” Ms. Zager said. “My friends in debt — I’m proud of them. They’ve worked so hard, but it’s really sad that people our age have to worry about that kind of money.”

Ms. Stocki, the credit adviser, spends a lot of time in area high schools, explaining to students the ins and outs of credit cards, college loans and mortgages in the period of about two hours. The subject matter could easily consume a semester, she said.

Schools should do more to educate high school students about the very adult financial world they’re about to enter, said T.J. Stone.

Mr. Stone is about to send his second daughter, Rachel, to college at the University of Pennsylvania. His first daughter went to Fordham.

“They’re asking these students to shoulder these responsibilities but students don’t understand what debt means,” he said.

In some cases, he said, the middle class has it tough. Middle-class America isn’t rich enough to subsidize a college education that, in many cases, can well exceed $100,000. However, they are ineligible for many federal grants.

“In my case, I ask that my kids play some role in it, that they have some responsibility,” he said. “Not too much, but it makes a difference when they actually have some chips in the game.”

©The Times-Tribune 2006

This entry was posted by Taman Siswa on Monday, June 5, 2006 at 7:39 pm and is filed under College Grant, Education News, Financial Aid, Student Loan. Tags: Associated Press, car payment, College, College Board, College Loans, Consumer Credit Counseling Service of Northeastern Pennsylvania, East Coast, Education News, Grant, Keystone College, Kristin Bolig, Lisa Zager, Loans, Marywood University, Pennsylvania, Rachel, Scholarship, Student, Student Loan, T.J. Stone, Terri Stocki, The Times, The Times-Tribune, the University of Pennsylvania, Tiffany Diehl, Tribune, West Coast, Williamsport, . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.