Rachel Cruze, the daughter of financial guru Dave Ramsey, really wanted to go to Auburn University, which to outsiders wouldn’t seem like much of a problem. Ramsey’s financial success meant the family could pay for any college she wanted.
“But we live out what we preach,” says Cruze.
Ramsey told her they would gladly pay the cost of four years of in-state tuition. She would pay anything beyond that.
“I thought that was harsh,” Cruze says.
But then she discovered it cost three times more at Auburn University in Alabama than college in her home state of Tennessee. And the education was not three times better, she says.
“I thought, ‘Wow! My parents are smart,'” she says with a laugh. “Going to that college didn’t make any financial sense.”
And so she went to the University of Tennessee and graduated debt free.
This makes her rare. Seven out of 10 students graduate with student loan debt averaging $29,400, according to the Institute for College Access and Success, an education research nonprofit. In June 2010, student loan debt passed credit card debt, and now is $1.08 trillion, according to the Federal Reserve.
Read the full story at Deseret News.
