Wow, I’m impressed that you guys managed with three kids (or almost that) on $65K/year with student debt. While $600/month might seem manageable to you now, that must have been frightening with that income and a bunch of young kids.
You’re wise to keep your kids out of student debt (as much as possible); you have a lot to be proud of. I’m not as convinced as others are that doors are necessarily closed, either. Your kids are far better off with a state college education and no debt than they would be with six-figure debt that can’t be discharged in BK, and a degree from an Ivy League institution. Everybody likes to talk about the successful students from those institutions, but I know just as many who graduated from elite/Ivy institutions and are doing no better (some even worse off) than many of us who have degrees from state colleges. People always like to ignore those stories when making these decisions.
Sure, it makes sense for some kids who are majoring in certain specific areas to attend a higher-profile institution; but I think that there is more hype there than many realize. The students who are chosen to attend those universities are already primed to succeed in life — whether it’s because of money/family connections, or an incredibly high IQ and/or freakish drive — the odds of them being more successful than their peers is predetermined long before they ever enter the gates of the Ivy Leagues. The elite degrees are effectively certificates showing that these people officially possess these traits…traits that are almost always based on genetics/luck.
