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Comment by chadlavi | Hacker News Reader

I know millennials with combined household incomes in excess of $200k who can't afford to buy, because huge student loans are required to get that kind of income if mommy and daddy aren't rich in the first place.

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You certainly don't need to be drowning in student loan debt to reach that. You could go to a state school and get an excellent job. That's just poor financial decision making. Where I live you could go to UVa, VT, or maybe VCU.

Don't forget the highly underrated community college systems in VA.

I hear community colleges put out there as an option to move into a 4 year state school often. I can't help but think it applies to many more states than I expected initially.

A lot of states have this, but follow the plan. Don't take random CC classes, only take ones that will transfer to schools they have agreements with. I did CC for a year and they marked the classes with an * which would transfer to the closest university.

Yep, in the state of VA you go to community college for 2 years and then can transfer to any 4-year school in the state. An amazing deal.

PA, for example where I went to school, was still nearly $20k/year for tuition at the flagship state schools. I know a lot of people in-state that ended up with over $100k debt.

$100k in student loans @ 4% and a 10 year pay off period. That's over $70k net pay in Philadelphia. I'd imagine you could certainly afford to buy a home after a short period of time saving for a down payment. If the dual income household is over $200k gross then it's just poor financial decision making.

You realize that out-of-state tuition for UVA is about $65k a year, right?

https://sfs.virginia.edu/cost/19-20

I thought it was implied by "state school" that I meant you should attend a school in your particular state. In-state tuition for UVa is half of that. Additionally it's easy VA to get guaranteed acceptance to a state school after two years of community college.

So probably closer to $30k/yr

You also have to factor consumerism and entitlement into the issue. I make white collar money, but live in a blue collar neighborhood. This makes housing more affordable and there is no temptation for "Keeping up with the Joneses".

It's easy to finger wag at supposed entitlement and consumerism when you completely ignore all the other factors that lead someone to decide where to live and work. As the breadwinner in my family I made the decision to live closer to where I work and pay a larger share of my income towards housing so I can spend more time with my kids and less in my car. There are plenty of other considerations far beyond your cynical take that would lead a family to live in an expensive ares: schools, services, healthcare, ability/desire to drive, child care, the list goes on. It is difficult to avoid getting rankled at this kind of imperious mindset, particularly because if you actually took the time to meet any of these so called materialists you would likely find that they just want to have a nice life with their families like everyone else. Calling it consumerism or entitlement is a cheap shot, reductionist, and in most cases doesn't reflect reality.

What's their occupation? You don't need huge student loans to get that kind of salary as a software engineer.

It depends a lot on the school you went to and what kind of financial aid you were able to get.

Back when I was picking a college for my CS undergrad, the choice boiled down to (numbers are rough estimates, because I don't remember the exact ones, but they are close enough and should relay the point I am trying to make):

* UCLA out of state: some financial aid for the first year, bringing the costs down to around $25k/yr. Around $35k+ each following year.

* Georgia Tech in state: without financial aid, around $9.5k/yr. With Zell Miller/HOPE scholarship (which every in-state student gets, provided they maintain a certain GPA), it brought down the tuition costs to essentially $0/yr. I still took out some loans for rent/basic necessity expenses, but those were miniscule. Like, less than the first year at UCLA kind of miniscule.

Both are well respected colleges, same program, but wildly different loan situations post-graduation. I obviously choice GT, but not everyone is in the same situation as me. The amount of loans doesn't always correlate with the kind of program you are choosing.

Just to add you could’ve done TAG (Transfer Admission Guarantee) to both GaTech and UGA from Georgia Perimeter (community college) and saved a bunch on tuition or get in via transferring to a difficult school. I went to KSU to be with my wife (girlfriend at the time) and did Information Systems. Had I known I would love software engineering I might have done CS elsewhere.

Are you still in Atlanta? If so what kind of tech do you work on?

I did TAG too (in California).

Oh yeah, I definitely heard about TAG program before, but it is fairly tricky, as I felt that the first years at GT are the ones that shape you up and give you a very strong head-start in terms of internships and such. I've known quite a few people who went through TAG, and a lot of them struggled at GT pretty majorly after transferring, because they weren't hit with the GT intensity hammer straight to their temple when they started college. While students who went through GT from the very beginning already embraced the hammer hits to the head by that point and even started hitting themselves with it. Definitely not a hard rule though, I've met quite a few TAG transfers who were just as resilient and successful in their college career.

As for ATL, unfortunately no. I moved to Seattle right after graduation for a couple of reasons. Starting with the career opportunities and ending with the desire for a change of scenery. If you want to talk more about it, do not hesitate to reach out - me(at-sign)olegwritescode.fyi

I know people in their 20's who make 100K+ but cannot afford anything because they get starbucks in the morning, expensive lunch and dinner at a bar daily.

They could have joined the Air Force, gotten some tech-related work experience, and then used the GI Bill to pay for their university education (I used mine to pay for my Masters).

> I know millennials with combined household incomes in excess of $200k who can't afford to buy, because huge student loans are required to get that kind of income if mommy and daddy aren't rich in the first place.

Man - I'm nearly at that income just by myself. (Am millennial) I know others my age who make $300k+/yr as single income. They also cannot afford to buy a home. It has nothing to do with debt for me or them (I graduated debt free thanks to the VA). It's purely the price of homes.

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