BYU to students: Buy private health insurance or drop out

[Ohiogal]

Twenty-two-year-old Kaydee Edralin is a few credits shy of graduating from college. She’s been saving money by living with her parents in Meridian while she waits to go back to Brigham Young University-Idaho in Rexburg.

Edralin had just gotten married in October and had planned out every detail of her family’s new budget.

That includes signing up herself and her husband under Idaho’s Medicaid expansion, which is a taxpayer-funded program that covers low-income people, pregnant women and those with disabilities.

But then something happened she didn’t plan for.

“I freaked out,” Edralin said. “Obviously, we don’t have a lot of money.”

Just two months before the next semester starts in January, right when the expansion gets off the ground, Brigham Young University-Idaho decided it wouldn’t consider Medicaid to be a valid form of insurance. The university is affiliated with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which is widely known as the Mormon church.

Now, Edralin, her husband and many other students will have to buy a private insurance plan or a relatively expensive student plan that offers limited coverage — or they won’t be allowed to enroll.

“We just got married, we’re college students and suddenly, now, I’m going to have over $1,000 extra each semester to pay for me and my husband in insurance when we’re covered by [Affordable Care Act-compliant], full-coverage Medicaid,” she said

Read more here: https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/local/education/article237694039.html#storylink=cpy

[at140]

1. College costs rise 112% above inflation in 4 years!

https://www.thecollegefix.com/college-costs-skyrocket-112-above-rate-of-inflation-over-last-four-years-study/

I have seen college students using student loans to buy cars and go on vacations!
Why is it so easy to borrow money using college loan route?

[ChubbyStar]

2. I've seen college students using loans to pay for college

Where is your anecdotal evidence coming from?

[at140]

8. From umpteenth friends of my 2 kids in college

[ChubbyStar]

9. Sounds like the parents and kids didn't think things through

Shame.

[at140]

10. Basically, not many want to give up fun items even if

it means you are going in debt to have that "fun" and will have to pay back every penny PLUS compounding interest.

[ChubbyStar]

12. Gee are you heading to the WELFARE CADILLAC stage?

Sure sounds like that....

[guillaumeb]

14. The same thought occurred to me as well.

And perhaps a trip to the liquor store?

[ChubbyStar]

16. The subtle touch is a thing of the past

Sad

[guillaumeb]

17. And this anecdotal "evidence" need not be documented.

That too is sad.

[Igel]

20. It's a mix.

And those who say loans are abused are either claiming all students do this exclusively or are just wrong because none do it.

It's like everything else. Some do, some don't. Asking for documentation implies you really can't trust the claims, they're outrageous. But they're not. The claim isn't that *all* kids to it--it's misconstruing the scope of the claim. It's like when there's a headline "Americans support impeachment"--you can read that as "all Americans" or "some Americans" or the slightly different "there are at least two Americans". How we read scope in that kind of construction really depends on us, not the speaker.

I had loans in grad school. With a part-time job, I had more money approved for loans than I needed. By thousands of dollars. Per year. I had a choice: I could scrimp and save and have lower loan debt or I could do stuff and have high loan debt. I was in humanities. I scrimped and saved. Studio apt. a few miles from campus, no car, cheap food, entertainment was going to the beach--except for the monthly night out my fellow grad students had at McGinty's, to indulge in whine and beer. (An Irish pub, "wine" wasn't an option.) Meanwhile, I saw kids who *did* borrow all they could have nicer apts., or cars, or take trips or eat out. Their attitude was that if the school gave them the money, why not use it? It was interest free.

I had loans as an undergrad. My father collected the money, paid tuition and fees, and after that I got a small stipend. Because it would have been very easy for me to take the entire amount I was offered and misuse a big chunk of it. I knew kids who did.

One friend took out as big a loan as he could, scrimped at saved, and put the excess in savings. When he graduated, shortly before interest started accruing he emptied that bank account and repaid that part of the loan. This was in '79, '80, '81. Hint: With CD interest at 8-9% per year, paying off the principle at face value and then adding in the accrued interest against principle was a good deal. (This practice was either rendered illegal or regulated out of existence, or the attempt made, later in the '80s.) If it's any consolation, he was a business major and his father was a lay minister and was an executive with a large aluminum company (and quite the a-hole). He shouldn't have bothered--he was dead less than two years after graduation, Marfan's syndrome led to one of the main arteries from the heart splitting open.


I know it continues because I've seen seniors in my class talking about their financial aid amount and that they'd already picked out their apt. and made shopping plans for a new wardrobe.

My take, apart from observations, is that many students are reasonable with their loans. They work to actively minimize the debt they accrue. Most could do better, but temptation is strong and will is weak. Esp. when planning past this Friday's party counts as long-term thinking. Some are egregious about it, and provide more temptation for those trying to be in any way frugal.

This post could be made less wordy, but, you know, I really need to go to the store.

[guillaumeb]

22. I almost hate to ask, but is it the liquor store?

And yes, as you note, there are some few who do not spend their money wisely.

When they are politically connected bankers, politicians give them welfare, not loans, and with no expectation of repayment.

But when they are students, we call them irresponsible.

[at140]

18. Totally different issue

The so called Cadillac welfare people are NOT borrowing money.
My point is about borrowing money for vacations.
If I were a college student, and my tuition was $5000 for the semester,
but I had $1500 in my bank account, I would borrow only $3500 student loan.
That is not what many students are doing. They borrow the full $5000 because it is easily available.
Then they spend the $1500 for "fun" items such as vacations.
Then by the time they graduate, the debt has grown bigger with compounding interest until paid back fully.

[emulatorloo]

3. Hope she finds a better more open minded college. And/Or takes BYU or the church to court.

[Wellstone ruled]

4. And the Cult has told it's Members

you can not be using those Socialist Programs. You must use our Privatized recommended list of Health Insurer's.

But,it is okay for those Members in good Standing to bleed the Beast by using the Poverty and Family Assistance programs in order to sustain their Religion.

[Hoyt]

5. Good news, BYU has already retracted decision and apologized for "turmoil."

https://www.sltrib.com/news/education/2019/11/26/byu-idaho-reverses-course/

[3catwoman3]

11. Good. Where the helll did they get off...

Last edited Tue Nov 26, 2019, 06:31 PM - Edit history (1)

...even thinking they have any right to dictate which kind of insurance a student chooses?

[Igel]

21. It's about money.

Student health centers have a fixed budget. Completely peripheral to the academic mission, they often don't get much central budget funds, alumni don't donate based on the quality of the heath center, and it's hard to get health center grants unless they're doing research.

If you're on Medicaid, then your doctor get what the government provides. No more. That means mid-year the center gets a budget cut, meaning they reduce staff (not workload), reduce salaries, or reduce services. Or the college, which probably isn't flush with money, finds money someplace else. It's the same when a company pulls in less money from sales--you lay off workers, increase workload, or make a crappier product. Or find something else to reduce expenses (we always say, "executive salaries," but in this case we can predict what kinds of things happen).

A lot of providers rely on factory-style service or down-size their service quality if they rely just on Medicaid payments.

[Shrike47]

6. I heard on NPR this morning, without detail, that BYU had reversed this.

[Ohiogal]

7. So glad to hear it.

Still, the fact that they instituted it in the first place ........

[pnwmom]

13. Just for the record, this was the BYU in Idaho, not the ones in UT or HI. nt

[Maru Kitteh]

15. Go to a stupid fundie christo-fascist school, win stupid prizes.

No sympathy here.

https://www.niche.com/colleges/brigham-young-university/students/

[HAB911]

19. Wha wha