22-year-old college student blows her $90,000 college fund and blames her parents

[JSt0rm]

Well her parents should have taught her how to budget but She has 1 year left of school and need 20k in loans. Thats not bad.

 

[Fingolfin269]

I like how she says she 'factored' things. Sounds like someone I know who when she got her first credit card thought she got a refill once it was maxed. Some people are just basically naive.

 

[irishScott]

Well her parents should have taught her how to budget but She has 1 year left of school and need 20k in loans. Thats not bad.

But loans and part-time jobs are embarrassing!

 

[sandorski]

Clinton left Bush a projected multi $Trillion surplus and Bush turned it into a multi $Trillion Debt. So this Student is actually not that bad....

She done fucked up.

 

[SSSnail]

Thanks, Obama!

 

[Slew Foot]

The future of America

 

[Red Squirrel]

I don't understand how people can be so irresponsible with money. My parents did not teach me much about financial responsibility, it's just something that came natural to me. If there is a resource that you know you'll always need, you should always make sure to have a decent stash of it, and if you come across a lot of it, don't be stupid with it, use some to splurge a little but save the rest. That goes with pretty much anything. Money, food (in a survival situation for example), energy (ex: if you are off grid) etc. Even animals understand this concept. A chipmunk will not eat all the peanuts you give it. They are a bonus, because they normally have to find food on their own and not have it handed to them, but they'll still go stash some of them.

If she had been smart she would have used part of it to pay for tuition and books and invest the rest to have it for when buying a house or other major purchase once out of college. Heck other than a scholarship and bursaries I never was given much money for college but because I would get a summer job every year starting in high school I managed to splurge quite a lot such as build a new computer or server every few years.

 

[AreaCode707]

Good lord....

My parents helped me pay for college, but between my first and second (final) year the .com bust happened and my folks got hit. I paid for my last year and I paid for a chunk of all three of my younger sisters' college funds.

Get a fucking job, like any other human being on earth. Also, think through and come up with a list of plausible solutions for your own problems rather than calling into a radio show... Either you're an attention-seeker or you're too lacking in problem-solving skills to earn a degree anyway.

 

[mmntech]

My grandparents had set up an account when I was a baby so that covered tuition when I was older. I paid for books and any other expenses though (gas, food). Worked damn hard. Especially in community college.

I'm not sure why this story is news. She sounds like a typical spoiled rich bitch to me. Joke is that these are the people that always seem to coast through life. I know so many talented, hard working young people who are struggling. Lot of folks have lost their jobs recently.

 

[tcsenter]

I don't understand how people can be so irresponsible with money. My parents did not teach me much about financial responsibility, it's just something that came natural to me.

Same way that you can give a 16 year-old a 400hp car and they wrap it around a tree. What about the 'instinct' for self-preservation? Naivety, inexperience, lack of maturity. Or same way young people can launch from home not knowing how to shop for groceries on a budget, how to cook anything, sew or repair clothes, use a washing machine, write a check or open a bank account, et. al. She sounds very immature. You'd swear you were listening to a sophomore in high school, not a 22 y.o. with three years of college completed. Imagine what she must have been like upon entering freshman year? Someone should have noticed before and that someone would be parents.

 

[Murloc]

did her parents wake up just now?

I understand personal responsibility and all but they did something wrong to have her grow up like this.

 

[pcgeek11]

While I am not saying that she is not responsible for her mistakes.

Why in the holy hell would anyone turn a teenager loose with 90K dollars and no supervision. She is a dumb@ss and she inherited it from her parents.

 

[HeXen]

It seems pretty clear he parents did NOT prepare her for adulthood,

That's extremely common. As a society, we can't rely on parents to do much more than provide food and shelter. If schools don't do it already, I think they should require classes that teach not just basic budgeting but explain interest rates, investing, financial consequences of breaking agreements, how to get good credit and why it's important....etc

Seriously, how many people use credit cards with insane interest rates and then think it's ok to make minimum payments? I think the system is screwed up for allowing such in the first place. I had established excellent credit by the age of 20, sadly few others seem to be able to do that.

My stepdaughter got straight A's in school. At 20 yrs old, her ass took over her logic skills and she bought a brand new car...then 6 months later actually thought it was ok to let them repo it as if nothing else would happen, that's when she learned about breaking lease agreements the hard way and they charged her $8 thousand dollars. And lord knows what it did to her credit.
Millennials are just flat out stupid.

 

[Brainonska511]

I don't understand how people can be so irresponsible with money. My parents did not teach me much about financial responsibility, it's just something that came natural to me.

They may not have taught you directly on the subject, but their actions and words likely had a big impact on your learning of financial responsibility. There is nothing natural about how to budget or handle money. It needs to be taught - parents don't have to have give a formal lesson, but incorporating ideas, such as how credit works, the cost of stuff, and budgeting into conversations or just doing things in front of children will help them learn.

 

[Nebor]

When did Yahoo Finance become buzzfeed? Journalism is not a pile of silly GIFs.

 

[Nebor]

I know I'm very fortunate for my parents to have paid for my college, and MBA and most of all to purchase my first home for me upon graduating college. When I meet people that are 30 years old, working 60+ hour weeks, but unable to afford things that I take for granted like eating out for lunch because of their $100k+ student loan debts, it makes me even more grateful. That said, I do feel like they did a pretty good job teaching me the value of money, as they required me to have a job all through high school and college (though admittedly in college the "allowance" they gave me far exceeded what I made at my IT department part time job.) As a working adult, I've never spent more than 25% of my net monthly income on regular expenses (I don't live large for the most part.)

I met a girl in San Antonio that went to a middling undergrad university, and a low end law school, to the tune of $320,000 in student loans. She was working a phone job at a personal injury firm, making a flat $50,000 a year, and she had to take overnight "call" duty to answer the phone when someone got rear-ended or whatever. I asked how she ever thought she could pay off her student loans, and she said she'd have to marry someone rich. But she was 40lbs too heavy and at 26 years old, quickly running out of time for that to be a viable solution.

 

[Spacehead]

When did Yahoo Finance become buzzfeed? Journalism is not a pile of silly GIFs.

Maybe it was written by a Millennial?

 

[BudAshes]

Maybe I'm just cynical but this feels incredibly fake.

 

[tcsenter]

I met a girl in San Antonio that went to a middling undergrad university, and a low end law school, to the tune of $320,000 in student loans. She was working a phone job at a personal injury firm, making a flat $50,000 a year, and she had to take overnight "call" duty to answer the phone when someone got rear-ended or whatever.

It should be a crime, I don't know what is the solution. You can't drink at 18 because you're not experienced and mature enough, but you can commit yourself to a lifetime of debt, expected to sort-out the convoluted fact v. hype of how much student debt is worth it (which involves a bit of reading tea leaves and prognostication). Third-party money, subsidies, and loans are part of the problem of exorbitant tuition, colleges and universities don't even behave competitively anymore because demand greatly exceeds supply.

 

[Brainonska511]

I met a girl in San Antonio that went to a middling undergrad university, and a low end law school, to the tune of $320,000 in student loans. She was working a phone job at a personal injury firm, making a flat $50,000 a year, and she had to take overnight "call" duty to answer the phone when someone got rear-ended or whatever. I asked how she ever thought she could pay off her student loans, and she said she'd have to marry someone rich. But she was 40lbs too heavy and at 26 years old, quickly running out of time for that to be a viable solution.

She should look into other ways to pay back her loan, such as loan forgiveness measures that are offered to people for working in the public sector or underserved areas instead of working such a deadend job. Sure, it isn't the glamorous high-profile lawyer life, but it's probably better than being a secretary with a law degree.

 

[pete6032]

I guess I look at everything (and these types of stories) at the issue at hand... I look at this as an issue that is ever-growing into a snowball mountain (regardless if bullshit example or not).

Problems include:

-Millennials always looking for someone to bail them out of the problems they get themselves into.

This is a narrative that angry Gen Xers have been consistently weaving for the past 5 years. Why are you looking at a story that you say could very well be made up and then using it to make conclusions about society's problems?

Perhaps the real issue this story brings to bear is the lack of journalistic standards in the US media.

 

[Murloc]

They may not have taught you directly on the subject, but their actions and words likely had a big impact on your learning of financial responsibility. There is nothing natural about how to budget or handle money. It needs to be taught - parents don't have to have give a formal lesson, but incorporating ideas, such as how credit works, the cost of stuff, and budgeting into conversations or just doing things in front of children will help them learn.

This.
There is no need for formal teaching.

Paying attention to money is a learned behaviour:
- When you go shopping with your parents as a kid, they look for stuff that is on sale instead of just waltzing in and buying the stuff that is easiest to reach.
- The piggy bank or having a personal bank account and then getting to spend some of it after seriously thinking about it is a form of formal teaching already
- Having to deliver to get some money too. Even if it's just menial housework.
- Not getting off scot-free after breaking stuff



Anyway I don't understand the stereotypes about millenials, unless in the US they really are that stupid and the generations change so much from each other.

 

[JSt0rm]

I know I'm very fortunate for my parents to have paid for my college, and MBA and most of all to purchase my first home for me upon graduating college. When I meet people that are 30 years old, working 60+ hour weeks, but unable to afford things that I take for granted like eating out for lunch because of their $100k+ student loan debts, it makes me even more grateful. That said, I do feel like they did a pretty good job teaching me the value of money, as they required me to have a job all through high school and college (though admittedly in college the "allowance" they gave me far exceeded what I made at my IT department part time job.) As a working adult, I've never spent more than 25% of my net monthly income on regular expenses (I don't live large for the most part.)

I met a girl in San Antonio that went to a middling undergrad university, and a low end law school, to the tune of $320,000 in student loans. She was working a phone job at a personal injury firm, making a flat $50,000 a year, and she had to take overnight "call" duty to answer the phone when someone got rear-ended or whatever. I asked how she ever thought she could pay off her student loans, and she said she'd have to marry someone rich. But she was 40lbs too heavy and at 26 years old, quickly running out of time for that to be a viable solution.

You got hooked the fuck up.

 

[Brainonska511]

Anyway I don't understand the stereotypes about millenials, unless in the US they really are that stupid and the generations change so much from each other.

It's just old people complaining about young people. It's been happening since forever.

 

[Nebor]

She should look into other ways to pay back her loan, such as loan forgiveness measures that are offered to people for working in the public sector or underserved areas instead of working such a deadend job. Sure, it isn't the glamorous high-profile lawyer life, but it's probably better than being a secretary with a law degree.

She's not a smart girl. And she's fat (~40lbs overweight.)

Myself and one of my friends were sitting with her, waiting for some other people to show up for brunch, and for some reason we were talking about the number of people who jump off buildings and bridges to kill themselves. I said something about not even feeling it when you hit the ground, and she said, "Well yeah, you're already dead by then." Puzzled, we questioned her, only to find that she had a long-held, sincere belief that when people jumped from great heights, the air resistance broke their neck as they fell, sparing them the terror of falling and the unpleasantness of striking the ground. The fact that an adult person, a lawyer no less, believed this was stunning. I asked her how she thought people survived skydiving. She said she had, in fact, been sky diving herself! But that the parachute keeps your neck from breaking. I asked her what kept her neck from breaking when she was falling, before she pulled her rip-cord. In a stunning display of some scientific knowledge, she said she thought the air wasn't thick enough at that height to break her neck!

My buddy, an Air Force pilot, and I kept looking back and forth at each other and her throughout this exchange, trying to see if she was pulling our leg. She was not. In fact, she became pretty upset with us over our many questions and incredulity at her belief.

So I think answering phones is about her speed.