Welcome, Prudent Scholars



Photo by Generation Bass

 Last week I shared a ride with a charming graduate student who during our chat told me matter-of-factly of his $70,000  professional-school debt.  That's on top of his undergraduate debt-load from a well-regarded private university.  To work in the field he loves -- the one for which is training -- he is resigned to a life of near-poverty. "I know I'll never own a house," he said.

Crushing debt and limited means to repay it can mean more than a life of renting. Crushing debt crushes choices and opportunities. Last fall The New York Times reported how debt thwarted young love or at least could make it more complicated.

Photo: Alan Cleaver

As a higher education professional, the owner of a couple of paid-off degrees and the co-steward of my husband's relatively modest student debt, I am all too aware of the costs of education. Lately, I have felt inundated with discussions -- in the media and face-to-face -- around the topic.

I'm a true believer in higher education. The college experience can be mind-expanding and add value to a life unrelated to issues of lifetimes earnings.  I'm a true believer, but I'm not here to proselytize.  This blog assumes you want an education of some sort beyond high school.  This blog assumes you haven't thought too much about finances before, but are ready to start. 

Because I make a true believer's salary, I get to practice one of my other great interests: frugality.  Like many other blogs on saving money, this space is for a discussion on cutting costs, sometimes substantially -- sometimes by just a little -- and getting value for money and time spent.

Photo: Alan Cleaver

This blog is not called the "cheap scholar" or the "cheapskate scholar" - for a reason.  Sometimes bargain basement prices do not lead to bargains. Sometimes they do.  This blog will share cost-saving tips, yes, but it will also be about priorities and values. We will discuss how you, my prudent scholar, can make choices that you can live with and, hopefully, live with comfortably and happily.  It is meant to help you own your choices rather than be swept along by expectations, assumptions and misunderstandings. 

I'm not really the prudent scholar of the title. You are. This blog is for all who are looking at the choices -- the tiny and the not-so-tiny that add up to the college experience.  I write to all the prudent scholars out there, who want to learn great things, but not at the cost of their future.