> Why is a mortgage strictly worse for living off of savings?

It’s not strictly worse but I assume it feels like a bigger commitment with more disastrous consequences should anything go wrong?

Foreclose on your house, your biggest asset is gone. That thing you worked for for so long.

Get kicked out of rented place. Eh, wasn’t yours anyway. Find smaller one or in a worse location, which you can afford.

Either way in my case buying is strictly worse because I can’t afford the down payment so there’s really just one option. Well, one comfortable option. I could always go homeless I guess. Would save me a lot per month ...

> Paying down my mortgage is just a bit more expensive than renting my apartment was.

Unless you already have a substantial nest egg or took out an expensive mortgage, your life savings were substantially reduced by the down payment. In addition to a more expensive monthly payment there are property taxes, maintenance costs ($ and time), HOA fees, and other burdens depending on your region and property type.

What do you do if the neighborhood or market changes and you really can't sell your house after a year?

> Paying down my mortgage is just a bit more expensive than renting my apartment was.

That might depend on where you are and other factors.

> Why is a mortgage strictly worse for living off of savings?

Maybe it's not and people are just hedging their bets?

Because university is a fantastically overpriced and surprisingly unconvoluted system for turning government-guaranteed un-dischargeable debt in to administrators' and football coaches' salaries via misery and virtual indentured servitude.

That is, a system that perpetrates upon people who have not gained the mental tools necessary to understand what they're agreeing to as a result of the US' staggeringly ineffective secondary schools, but who _have_ been convinced that not attending college is a guaranteed marker of social inadequacy by a marketing engine that pushes the message "You're a worthless person if you don't go to college" in to culture at every possible juncture?

Federal Direct Student Loans, available to undergraduate students at a relatively low fixed rate (but still higher than say, a decent mortgage on a house), only allow a student to take out about $6000/year.

But as college tuition skyrockets (mine is $70k/year, and increasing, and I have a brother at an equivalently priced institution too!), that wont cut it. The rest must either come from personal/family finances, be taken out from the federal government in solely the parent’s name (Federal Direct Plus Parent Loan, with a higher interest rate than direct student loans) or, if that’s not an option, a private lender (usually with an even higher rate).

With circumstances like they are and pitiful stopgaps like these, it’s no wonder my parents waited so long to have children so that they could afford to send them to school. Unfortunately, that’s not an option for most families. The student loan crisis in America really is terrifying.

I went to college on an ROTC scholarship, so that's another option (of course, you're an indentured servant to Uncle Sam for 8 years after graduating - that may or may not be worse than obligating yourself to lenders via student loans, depending on your perspective).

no, there isn't. I personally paid my way with loans and work, but I wouldn't mind paying a portion of a public university education for my children. Remember you generally end up cosigning loans, so if your kid flakes out, you're on the line anyway.

Isn't saving for kids' college an American tradition?

Also, it seems that in the US, student loans are a pretty heavy burden to take on.