My daughter got accepted to American University. She wants to be an interpreter, and possibly work for the CIA or FBI. We think DC is the best place for her to be. She could make some connections there. However, American is not giving her a lot of money. Our loan is going to be ridiculous, but this is really where she wants to be. Any thoughts?
The FBI has operations in all 50 states- and in populous states, they have MULTIPLE offices which focus on different things. Making connections to work for either agency is a very poor reason to go to American.
Has your D checked out the CIA and FBI websites for new hires to see the skills required? And is she focused on a strategic language (Farsi, Korean, Mandarin) where she’s already got some skills?
I would not take out a ridiculous loan JUST to be in DC. That’s weak rationale.
Are her other options affordable without loans?
You are crazy to go into debt for her education. The only loans anyone should take out for an undergrad degree are the standard federal student loans, and those are in the kid’s name.
She can get the language skills she needs to become a professional interpreter at a lot of places - probably even at your own home-state public universities. The CIA and FBI recruit nationwide - almost certainly even at your own home-state public universities. She can get summer internships with them in DC and elsewhere.
Sit down with all of her admissions and aid offers. Run the numbers here: http://www.finaid.org/calculators/awardletter.phtml Run a few debt repayment calculators and see just exactly how long you could be digging yourself out of the hole you are thinking of putting yourself into. Look around at your home and your life, and ask yourself how much you are truly ready, willing, and able to give up so that you can indulge this child.
Just my thoughts on this.
I think AU is a great university for many things including what your daughter wants to do. But I don’t think it’s worth going into a large amount of debt for. (What “large” is is obviously relative to what each family’s resources are.) What are her other options?
What is the closest affordable school that has the languages needed for her career goal?
She could look into this program
https://www.borenawards.org/scholarships/program-basics/boren-scholarship-basics
What are her other choices? Are there summer programs at American or DC schools that your student can attend to supplement a less expensive option? How comfortable are you in taking out these loans? How much of a hit is it going to make to you? I don’t believe that saddling a kid with more than the DIrect loan limits of about $27K over the 4 years is a good idea. Hard enough to pay that off, especially if grad school a possibility. Without you cosigning or taking out loans yourself, there is not a lot more a student can get anyways. So the question comes down to how much damage will loans to make American possible do to you.
Every school she got into requires a loan. She got a huge award from Bard but didn’t like the vibe there.
My DS wanted to do IR, and would have loved to live in Wash. DC. He got into American with a small merit scholarship, and another place in Pittsburgh with a bigger merit scholarship. So he went to the other place, and did his school’s Washington DC semester program, with additional merit money for that. We figure, he can always go to DC for grad school. Also this semester made clear to us that DC is much more expensive than Pittsburgh for housing – we suspect American, which was already budget-busting, would have been much worse than anticipated financially.
No regrets about his decision so far.
But, I will say, he really didn’t care for Bard when we visited, and he didn’t apply. It seemed quite isolated.
Any instate affordable public options on her admissions list?
I think the feds might be cautious about hiring someone who carries a lot of debt. I wouldn’t cosign loans for her. If she doesn’t like the affordable schools she applied to I’d recommend that she take a gap year and apply to a new list of schools.
What kind of loans are you talking about here? Nothing that you guys can swing with just the student federal loans, plus her working on campus and summers? And has she actually looked at what it takes to get hired by the FBI and the CIA??? There are a lot of kids who assume that a BA and a skill does the trick- have her check out the requirements before she goes full on in love with American. It’s a great place but it is NOT necessary to be in DC for college in order to end up there. And if the money doesn’t work, how is she going to launch her adult life with those kind of loans???
What loans were in the other aid packages? Just the federal student loans? Or were there also suggested Parent Plus loans?
Did you run the Net Price Calculators at the websites of these places before she applied? If so, were the aid packages in the predicted range?
Did you give her a budget limit at the beginning of the college hunt? Or were the costs of college a complete awful surprise to your family?
If the numbers don’t work, she can take a gap year and apply to a more affordable list for fall 2020. Since she’s interested in languages, this could be a good opportunity to go abroad with an organization like YFU or AFS to work on one of her languages.
Just fyi, the vast majority of CIA interpreters are native speakers. Language skills can be acquired and useful in other roles, including intelligence analysts. But interpreters generally have native level fluency and will be tested for that.
As a former American student, it is not worth a family going into crushing debt. As many others have pointed out, many schools have a semester in Washington DC programs that you can take advantage of and AU even is a host to some of these programs. Another thing to consider is that AU will only continue to get more expensive as the years go by and your financial aid offer will not change.
I would suggest your daughter go to another university that your family can afford. It will be a better experience as many AU students end up not enjoying their time in college as the years go by because they are stressed by the huge amount of debt they (or their family) will be after graduation. In regards to internships, I guarantee you that any school has access to internships if students make a point of looking. While it is true that DC provides easy access, local areas also have internships such as police forces, government agencies, private companies, etc. When it comes time to apply for jobs, the CIA or FBI will not throw out her application because she didn’t go to school in DC.
The big question here is what the impact of these loans will be for you, your daughter, your family. 4 years of AU costs what a nice house can ask in much of this country. Can you weather another mortgage? Without knowing your income, assets, other liabilities, living expenses, retirement funding and the rest of your financial picture, can’t say if it’s crazy for you to take out whatever the loan amounts are
I can tell you that it is not s good idea to have your daughter take out co signed loans in addition to what the school can give her on her own. There is a very good reason for them to be limited. Unless parents can help out their kids with large loans, like take a bulk of the repayment, student loans are worse than the proverbial dead albatross around the neck. Too many people out there suffering with high student debt burden.
My daughter just graduated from American University. While I feel like it was a good education and D graduated summa cum laude, I don’t think the degree is worth going in debt for. My daughter landed her first job.n DC. Her salary will pay her living expenses if she resides with several other people. She always tells us how grateful she is that she doesn’t have college debts to pay.
Most big state universities offer very good language instruction. Your daughter would be better off studying there for a whole lot less money, then doing a few study abroad summers/semester etc., to polish her language skills. Also, the CIA has for years subsidized the study of exotic languages at large publics, and probably still does today. I would recommend your daughter talk to the language professors at your flagship university about what contacts they have with the government in terms of language grants. Of course, these have to be languages the government needs. It won’t be Spanish or French.
Yes, there is information in my earlier post about Boren scholarship program.
My own view is no college language classes in of themselves are sufficient to help you become fluent or even advanced in a particular language. You need an immersive experience. Also, some people are just better at picking up a new language. I don’t think this ability is related all that much to academic ability. At FBI or CIA, I would think you need a near native fluency level, which is incredibly hard for non-natives to achieve.
My son really liked American, but went elsewhere and his best friend attended. He attended one of the American’s summer language programs in Jordan - and was underimpressed. He’d covered a lot more ground in his first year of Arabic than the students from American. Later he spent his junior year in Jordan in two different programs. The student with the best language skills was from the U. of Mississippi. (They have Flagship programs in both Arabic and Chinese.)
FWIW despite studying Arabic for all four years and spending three semesters in study abroad programs he is competent for everyday conversations, but far from fluent, especially for reading. He’s in the Navy, and as far as I know they don’t have him using his Arabic skills.
All this is a roundabout way of saying I don’t think American is worth going into debt for.