Why do American Students seem to be broke all the time.

If i were in singapore, i wont do anything as dumb as buying a house, other than the HDB's (which is pretty cheap on a dollar for dollar basis). My sisters are PR's in singapore, and according to them, its the good life compared to Malaysia living cost (if you don't buy a car).

Most malaysians, when we live and work in SG, cant for the life of us understand why singaporeans say living cost is high.

 

It is live or die everywhere, to some extent. Student must have support or work / loan to earn what he/she doesn't have.

 

HDBs cost around 600k+ in the sticks. Salaries are higher, but most of my Malaysian friends complain about Singapore general cost of living costing a lot more than Malaysia, although much safer.

 

If they do not live at KL back in malaysia, than yes. Otherwise, rental is bout the same . But cost of transportation is much lower in sg on a dollar for dolalr basis, unless you're driving i think.

 

I still recall talk in the Russian diaspora many moons ago, right before 2000, of deluded poor men who were convinced that Putin was clean because he was from St Petersburg. Good times...

 

Yes and I remember reading that the person supposedly in charge of privatization in St Petersburg was gunned down with an AK in broad daylight. They are all thieves on a Bernie Madoff scale.

 

Worse. Madoff was a lonely and unimaginative con-artist that was caught swimming naked when the wave died out. Putin however has heaps of funds stashed with Friends & Family and nukes.

 

So you buy a Clip Plus and a PortaPro...

 

To be fair, people recommend the Koss PortaPro even for a 3000EUR DAP.

 

Of course, so much bang for the buck.

 

The Tera-Player was 10K€ only a couple of months ago. And it's a fraud. (I recall at one point it had the "stealth" version which had the paint on the buttons scrubbed off and cost one grant more...)

It uses a "NOS Philips R2R with current output, ASRS element and true 16-bit resolution" (most likely a TDA1543). If you are ready to pay 3K, or 6K (about a year ago or so), or 10K, you may as well get yourself an Yggdrasil + Ragnarok + Utopia for the price and enjoy music indoors (or add as well an UPS and a fancy chariot and knock yourself out).
And if you really want a NOS Philips R2R implementation, do yourself a favor and get the TDA1543-based SPS DAC3 at realistic prices (~200$) and call it a day.

In short, if you want an DAC for the PortaPros get a Fulla 2, a Modi Multibit or an SPS DAC3 and don't bother with anything above 300 currency units...

 

Testing the Fulla 2 with my PortaPro right now. For less than 150 Dollars you can have a decent system for PC-audio.

 

Regarding the topic, price levels, money management skills, the housing market and what is and is not subsidised by the state all make a difference.

In the end though, your money management skills make the difference between having a place or hitting the streets...

 

TDA1545A

 

If you will excuse some probably-irrelevant nostalgia.

I was a lazy academic failure, but if I had not been, I would have gone to university. The British government would have paid my tuition fees, and, if I recall right, given me some small living allowance.

Then came Mad-Cow* Thatcher. Now students leave university with a debt people of my generation would never have had until they bought a house on a mortgage. On the what-you-might-call working-class side of things, she destroyed the apprenticeship system too.



*BSE. Bovine Spongiform Encephalitis. It's been a while, people, especially non-Brits, might not remember.

 

American Student Here. I go to a top (not Ivy but same tier... you'd know it if you heard the name) school and it's insanely expensive. Total cost of attendance breaks down to about 60-65K+ a year US dollars. This is not unusual for top schools in the US, as mentioned good state schools are usually in the 40-50 range, with lesser state schools in the 20-35 range. My family isn't poor, but both my parents work, and they make decent but not crazy money for what they do. I was lucky to get a full merit scholarship to my school, but I still work two jobs to cover all the other costs: Books, insurance, travel to and from school, etc. Cost of living in the US is exceptionally high compared to other countries. As someone mentioned earlier, $60K USD is a really excellent starting salary in a lot of careers. I just checked currency conversion rates, and if an '80-120K SGD' course is not bad, that's pretty nuts. In the US that range is equivalent to about 55-85K. 50K is considered pretty exorbitant and is more than most folks in the middle class could afford. I think besides cost of living being generally higher, credit is an issue too. Lots of people have mountains of debt, because travel and living expense expectations are high. Most of the country still requires you to drive long distances or take planes. Most hotels/motels during said travel are minimum $100/night (if you like to cuddle with roaches) and in the cities apartments without air-con, running hot and cold water, individual toilets and bedrooms, etc. are hard to find. Plus there's laws about how many folks you can stuff into one apartment. All this drives costs way up. I'm basically on my own after school, although my parents are willing to help a little with travel expenses, they have neither the means nor the inclination to pay for me to screw around in some other city. I'm super lucky that I'll be getting out of school debt-free. There's enough mounting student debt in the states that it's considered a big domestic problem in the political arena.

In terms of Audio, I have what I have mostly because I'm good at scavenging stuff people don't want and trading/selling it up then going deal-hunting. I would never be able to afford any of the stuff I have on just the money I have available to me. My wallet generally doesn't get much above $10-$20 tbh, with the caveat that I'm currently putting all my money into savings so that I have some ability to actually move and find a job after school.

Hope that wasn't too rambly or scattered. Happy to try to answer questions if anyone has any.

 

Besides the overinflated college tuition prices... high cost of living in most university towns (rents of $800/month per bedroom common), high costs of textbooks ($1000 per semester common, and you can't use old versions because of how professors will give assignments that only apply to new question numbering), high cost of food and other standard necessities, and you'll still want to do things like go out drinking with your friends.

Even if you qualified for fully covered tuition via need based financial aid, none of the above is covered by those grants (typically only tuition and in some lucky cases dormitory housing or some stipend for textbooks is allowed but this isn't common), so you will need some sort of loan to live. $5,000 a year wouldn't be unusual. You do everything "right" and still graduate with $20,000 in debt, then take a job at a pay rate lower than you were told by your college's advisors would be a realistic salary for your field. This new job is likely in an urban area with as high or higher costs of the living than your university town. You have to pay off your debt, but it's a slow process because you're not exactly making big bucks as a recent graduate. This doesn't even consider how much a new lease to rent an apartment costs in urban areas (generally 3 months rent up front -- do you have $4000 to spare?). The cycle continues. If you need a masters degree for your field of interest, it's another $50,000-100,000 loan for tuition (no financial aid for graduate progams. Not everyone wants to be a slave for 4-6 years for a PhD in a field they aren't necessarily even sure they will want to study for the rest of their lives yet).

 

Interest rates on federal loans are very low. My wife graduated medical school with over 100k in loans but interest was less than 3%. Don't remember the exact rate. If you die federal loans are automatically canceled unless you refinanced or consolidated and you brought your spouse's name into the loan, which would be a big mistake.
Also, there are a number of ways in various occupations that you can sign up for programs where the government will pay off your loans. My wife had about half of her loans paid for by the gov. If I'd had loans as a teacher then I could have done the same.

I was fortunate to come out of college with no debt except for that nice Fodera bass I bought at the time on credit card.

 

Subsidized federal loans like the Stafford Loan vary yearly and mine were 6.0% when I graduated undergrad and 6.8% for the graduate version (lower rate doesn't apply after a certain dollar limit or for graduate study etc.) which accrues interest starting immediately, not after graduation. That adds up.

Forgiveness programs, e.g. loans are forgiven after 10 years working in the public health or education sectors, are good but you'll still be short cash for 10 years and these laws are currently under threat.

 

10 years? If my wife had been working full time instead of part time she could have received complete loan forgiveness after 4 years. Just depends I guess and the programs change.