It is a good story in terms of killing debt.
I felt weird reading it because while I agree he did a very admirable job saving.... boy-oh-boy what a bad decision on the schooling.
I get it. I also regret the choice in school I made years ago. Thankfully, it wasn't as clown ridiculous as 'Tufts' tuition...but I still could have cost avoided a significant amount of it.
Is it a status thing?
Quit caring about the 'brand' on an education. Buy the best value education. Period.
His parents had great intentions. Unfortunately, I also think they unwittingly saddled their son with a grossly unnecessary financial burden out of the gate.
This seems to be a woefully scary plan for many today...buy the 'best' education you can 'afford'.
Unfortunately people interpret this as 'Biggest Name Brand' that you 'can get a loan for'. Ugh.
I related a lot to this. My early years in DC were similar - 3 people in a 2BR house (I slept in the basement). Even down to the chicken fingers and occasional fries. And sandwiches for lunch. And paying off my loans (which were much smaller).
It was a good story, and I really cannot blame him too much on the choice of college. I was the first in my family to go to college. Who was going to tell me it was a bad choice? I went to a Tufts-like expensive private school. I got financial aid. They only "took away" financial aid from me once. I also applied early decision. It's a difficult choice to make.
But notice - the loans were mostly in his father's name. Son wasn't necessarily "saddled", though he was.
The Tufts status DID help him out. Was it worth the difference in price tag? We'll never know.
I think it's pretty important to think critically about the brand of the college and the expense and the loans ahead of time. But recognize, the typical 17 year old isn't equipped with the maturity to do so. And in my generation, and this guy's, many of the parents aren't equipped either, simply because they themselves didn't go to college. And people don't talk about money.
So you see what everyone else is doing, but you don't know how much debt is crushing them, or if they had a wealthy grandparent.
In any event, the summer before college, after I'd accepted long before and was looking at borrowing about 1/3 of the first year, my mother started hyperventilating and talking about the expense. Note: she made $9k a year, FAFSA set her amount at zero. I sent in a bunch of applications for ROTC, the Navy called me first, and that's all she wrote. I ended up with a 3 year scholarship for tuition, books, and fees, and ended up borrowing less each each for room & board.
I hate to turn this into the haves and the have nots, but that's how higher ed works.
When it comes to brand name schools, you've got poor kids who get a lot of aid (me), rich kids whose parents bankroll them. The middle class is pretty much screwed in many ways. They aren't getting aid and they can't afford to pay it and too many choose to saddle themselves with debt.