By: Kim L.

My parents have been preaching the so-called "gospel" of Dave Ramsey for years. They quote him every time we talk about my student debt and they refuse to believe me when I tell them the many very legitimate reasons why I choose to keep getting student loans. They use his advice to try and guilt me for going to a great undergrad and law school because, essentially, if I had just gone part time to crappier schools and worked my ass off at a part time jobs throughout, I wouldn't have to be in debt. Yeah, it'd take me a bit longer and I would likely never be able to get the amazing jobs, internships, and networking opportunities that going to prestigious schools necessarily affords, but who cares? I'd be debt free if I had just followed this advice... For people like my dad who grew up in a time when going to a 4-year university, even for people going into engineering like him, was the exception, not the norm, this whole student loan culture seems totally crazy. My dad was the only one of his siblings to get a Bachelors, he didn't go into a penny of debt to get there, and now he holds a high-level position at a fortune 500 company, lives a very comfortable upper-middle class lifestyle, and is confused that my brothers and I couldn't follow this same debt-free model. I don't know how much of his ignorance about the current economic necessity of getting student loans comes from growing up in a different time or how much comes from listening to Dave Ramsey constantly, but I've always suspected that at least part of that comes from the latter. So thanks for posting the article. I've always felt inadequate to actually argue against any of his message, but now I feel like I at least have a place to start.