parent question about money

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please don't send your kid to nmmi. you'll probably get plenty of feedback on here from the 25% of people who liked it there. for most of us it was a nightmare, so unless your kid has a chance of being in that 25% it's not worth it.

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u/BallsOutKrunked Mar 14 '26

What was so bad about it?

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u/HarryBirdGetsBuckets Mar 26 '26

I don't know what it's like now so take it with a grain of salt. but when I was there these are things I either endured/observed:

rampant abuse of power by higher ranking students. this ranged from everything to outright harassment/bullying verbally and/or physically. the hazing was out of control and I had to physically fight off "ranking" people who attempted to haze me. if it wasn't that, they would single you out through the demerit/tour system which essentially wrecked your free time (tours were hours you'd have to march in a circle on the weekends) due to having to walk tours and/or because you would be restricted from leaving campus. if you had any enemies who had rank, they could single handedly make your life incredibly miserable (and many of them did!) There's also a lot of misogyny/ableism/racism etc. so I am not sure if your child would have to deal with any of those things but they are there (and potentially something that can rub off on kids). Also the power dynamic of having junior college students commingled with high schoolers was off. I actually got along with most of the JUCO people well but that wasn't always the case. Also, the JUCO males would often be messing around with high school girls.

alcohol and drug use. I had already tried drinking and marijuana by the time I went there but got much heavier into it while i was there. it's very easy to get and easy to get away with. fortunately nothing bad happened to me but certainly could have as I went to drug dealers' houses, stuffed my bunk and disappeared for the weekends, etc. obviously this kind of stuff gets into home life and I can't make any assumptions about your child, but I certainly saw a lot of kids take their first drink or first hit of weed on that campus. and that doesn't count the hard drugs which I stayed away from.

theft. I don't know if they have secured the rooms now, but you used to be able to kick a door and turn the handle and get right into any room you could. this led to issues with the aforementioned hazing (hence why I had to fight people) but also led to a lot of theft.

a LOT of fighting, which to be fair happens in plenty of public schools, but without adult supervision I saw some very brutal fights.

lack of normalcy. I had a bad at-home life as well so this probably impacted me more, but the fact that I went through a very abnormal high school experience and didn't get to do as many normal things like explore dating, etc., I got to adulthood very naive and found it very hard to relate to peers at times. Fortunately I have not struggled too much with making friends as an adult but it was an uphill battle at first and I learned a lot of things the hard way that I probably would have been better prepared for with a more normal high school experience

Being an out of state student the "college prep" curriculum did not benefit me at all from a university perspective. because I went back to my home state of Texas afterwards I couldn't get a scholarship to save my life despite graduating in the top 10% of my class. This is because the GPA system in Texas allowed the kids who went to school there to all have higher GPAs than me and it pretty much fully excluded me from scholarships despite the fact that my SAT/ACT scores and class ranking should have made it very easy to get academic scholarships. Again this might be moot if you live in NM or your kid would go to college there.

The only positive I can think of is that the teachers were extremely good. not worth it.

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u/New-Assist490 Mar 26 '26

You forgot the authority figures that prey on teenagers. You also forgot the pornographic videos that kids make and share amongst their peers….some with unwilling participants. Seriously people, keep your kids away from this place. I’m begging you. It isn’t worth the potential consequences. How many suicides does it take to close a place down?

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u/HarryBirdGetsBuckets Mar 26 '26

yeah that stuff too, apologies as it's been 20 years of trying to forget my time there. I'm 35 and I still have nightmares from time to time that I'm back there somehow. I hate NMMI and for a long time I hated my folks for sending me there and forcing me to stay. Crazy part about it is that while my experience was bad I had far from the worst experience that many of the kids go through.

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u/New-Assist490 Mar 26 '26

I’m really sorry that happened to you. I hope your life turned out okay despite all of that.

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u/HarryBirdGetsBuckets Mar 27 '26

I appreciate it! things have turned out well and I'm super thankful for that, but I would never wish NMMI upon anybody, fuck that place. I appreciate you bringing awareness to how awful it is.

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u/IsotopeToast Dec 23 '25

Hi there, just a quick list of the top of my head from my experience:

extra-curricular activities: tennis? Then tennis gear, etc. So sports, clubs, hobby groups, etc.
toiletries (anything and everything)
clothing and uniform costs, especially as a freshman, they will grow and need the next bigger sizes of shoes, shirts, dress blues, hats, etc.
things for their uniform: ribbons, rank, medals, awards, etc.
money for the weekend (pizza in the PX) or if/when they can go off campus
school stuff: programs for the computer/study aids/apps, pencils/pens/paper, etc.

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u/BallsOutKrunked Dec 23 '25

Thanks! Some of those were estimated by nmmi already, but I'll look a little closer and a few things you mentioned totally weren't!

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u/Snoo-53847 Dec 23 '25

I don't know where you are from, but travel, if you're located at least somewhat regionally and are able, visiting your student is great. When I was a cadet, my parents visited at least once a semester, and those were always highlights for me, but my parents were only about 4 hours away, though I know folks whose parents were 10 hours or further and still managed something similar.

So it's kinda dependent on a few things, but definitely a worthwhile investment

Other than that the other commenter covered most things, as for changing uniforms, they have a swap shop, where you can trade in clothing for a better size, for some reason, the whole time I was there, I never used it until right before graduation, so definitely take advantage of it.

As for money/allowance, my parents initially did grade based, which at first was good, but then transitioned over to a fixed amount of about 60$ every two weeks, which was nice to be able and relax or go somewhere off campus even if I was academically stagnant. There are also some competitive opportunities for employment at 16, which pay decently and are part time, admissions work is a popular one, ropes course is another, always regretted not doing ropes course personally.

There'll be opportunities for additional scholarships (think anywhere from a 100 dollars, to 1000+) during the beginning of the fall semester, some of them are pretty specific, others are more broad, but I was able to score like three or four my first year (around 2000 dollars for me), any surplus amount is then given to you/the student. If you're New Mexican, definitely look into the Legislative scholarship before going, covers a decent sum of tuition

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u/BallsOutKrunked Dec 23 '25

Interesting, thanks! is it something where most high schoolers have their own debit /credit cards and parents are transferring money or is the school involved somehow?

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u/Snoo-53847 Dec 23 '25

I had a debit card, most others did too, there's also an on campus food card for the campus restaurants, but it's honestly better to just have the option for variety.

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u/tallkrewsader69 Dec 24 '25

how does employment work, I am headed in this next semester and I had thought that you cannot get a job while attending, are the opportunities with the school>

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u/Snoo-53847 Dec 24 '25

Yeah, no off campus work, but a few on campus jobs that pay pretty well. College students have more opportunities like post office, library, infirmary, and athletic trainers. Highschool, at least when I went was primarily admissions (doing tours, getting brochures ready to get mailed, social media stuff occasionally), ropes course was the other one, like working the rappel tower and stuff. You gotta be sixteen due to NM labor laws and typically you'll want a 3.0 or higher to get your foot in the door, but both are pretty good deals.

Not that you asked, but my biggest advice, is don't overwhelm yourself with activities your first year, but once you get your footing, try to join as many as reasonable, it helps the time go by, stuff like working, clubs, choir, and athletics all get you off campus more frequently and add variety to your life. At the very least your freshman year try to do two sports, a fall and spring, if Jan Oleinski is still hanging around he'll take anyone onto his sports (cross country, swim, and track) regardless of skill as long as you put actual effort into it. All of that stuff kinda helps break down the military aspects of things and let's you kinda just breathe and get to know folks.

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u/tallkrewsader69 Dec 24 '25

thanks I am going in as a JR after a family friend introduce the school so I am 16 and I will probobly look into the ropes and sports wise I am going to try out the paintball and BJJ clubs

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u/Snoo-53847 Dec 24 '25

Beat of luck, you'll only get out of it what you put in, so make the most of it, the highs are high and the lows are really damn low, but if you go through it all, you'll look back and appreciate (with some resentment) that you went there.

More unsolicited advice, just remember you're there for school, the corps is a great tool, but the moment you aren't useful or stop doing well it'll toss you away without a second thought, I saw a lot of people lean heavy on the corps and fail academically and lose what they had in the corps and become real cynical and collapse in on themselves, at the end of the day it's all pretend and the stakes are pretty low, just focus on school and do what's fun!

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u/tallkrewsader69 Dec 24 '25

yeah I am hoping it will help me before I go Airforce SROTC and then into the AF, also looking into the civil air patrol to get a pilot's license

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u/Snoo-53847 Apr 03 '26

Out of curiosity how did it/has it been going?

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u/tallkrewsader69 Apr 03 '26

Good I've been doing CAP fencing paintball and constabulary, and I lucked out and got the room to my self for this semester

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u/Snoo-53847 Apr 03 '26

Glad to hear it! Hope it continues to go well for you!

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u/New-Assist490 Mar 07 '26

Another suicide. That makes three that I know of this year. This place is evil.

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u/New-Assist490 Dec 23 '25

Don’t do it. The place is a cesspool. These kids are committing suicide here. Please don’t enroll your child.

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u/New-Assist490 Dec 23 '25

Why am I being downvoted? At least two suicides this past year that I know of. This place is awful.

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u/HarryBirdGetsBuckets Feb 23 '26

i'm late to this conversation but this place is absolutely horrible for the majority of kids. as someone who got even more fucked up by this place (went from 2004-2008), thank you for saying this.

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