> Students should pay the maximum that they and their family are able to, inclusive of student loans. If their parents have collateral in any form including home equity or retirement accounts, it should be assumed that this collateral can be used to secure loans or pay for the school.
This rings true for me at least when I was in college (early to mid 2010s). My parents happened to buy a house in the late 80s in a community where real estate values ended up rising enormously by the time I was applying for financial aid, and my dad happened to work for a private company where only employees were allowed to hold stock for the vast majority of his career (he coincidentally started there around when they bought the house), so his stock was basically part of his savings for retirement. I ended up not getting a huge amount of financial aid in terms of either grants or student loans, so the options were for my parents to refinance their mortgage they weren't done paying off, spend a huge portion of their retirement money on my education, or have me take out private loans with them as cosigners with the idea that I would hopefully be able to pay them back on my own. We opted for choice 3, so I ended up graduating with around $100k in debt with fairly high interest rates due do having had no credit or income at the time we applied for the loans. Overall, it's worked out due to some luck in terms of the job I was able to get out of college, but it still feels like that shouldn't have been required in the first place. On the other hand, I completely agree with the assessment that I was not anywhere close to a priority to receive financial aid. One of my best friends in college had one parent who only was able to get part time work and another parent who was disabled and couldn't work; between the grants and low interest loans he was given as financial aid, he essentially was able to attend for free, which I wish was available to everyone like him who needed it much more than I did.
This rings true for me at least when I was in college (early to mid 2010s). My parents happened to buy a house in the late 80s in a community where real estate values ended up rising enormously by the time I was applying for financial aid, and my dad happened to work for a private company where only employees were allowed to hold stock for the vast majority of his career (he coincidentally started there around when they bought the house), so his stock was basically part of his savings for retirement. I ended up not getting a huge amount of financial aid in terms of either grants or student loans, so the options were for my parents to refinance their mortgage they weren't done paying off, spend a huge portion of their retirement money on my education, or have me take out private loans with them as cosigners with the idea that I would hopefully be able to pay them back on my own. We opted for choice 3, so I ended up graduating with around $100k in debt with fairly high interest rates due do having had no credit or income at the time we applied for the loans. Overall, it's worked out due to some luck in terms of the job I was able to get out of college, but it still feels like that shouldn't have been required in the first place. On the other hand, I completely agree with the assessment that I was not anywhere close to a priority to receive financial aid. One of my best friends in college had one parent who only was able to get part time work and another parent who was disabled and couldn't work; between the grants and low interest loans he was given as financial aid, he essentially was able to attend for free, which I wish was available to everyone like him who needed it much more than I did.