<p>[The</a> Education Bubble, Part 1: Sticker-Shock Debt Becomes An ‘Overwhelming’ Burden | WBUR](<a href=“http://www.wbur.org/2010/05/24/student-loans-i]The”>The Education Bubble, Part 1: Sky-High Debt Is 'Overwhelming' Burden | WBUR News)</p>
<p>[The</a> Education Bubble, Part 2: Stricter Institutional Advisement Could Keep Loan Levels Down | WBUR](<a href=“http://www.wbur.org/2010/05/25/student-loans-ii]The”>http://www.wbur.org/2010/05/25/student-loans-ii)</p>
<p>Great articles - thank you so much for posting these links.</p>
<p>Any parent or student thinking of taking on large loans to go to their dream school should read these (and other similar) stories.</p>
<p>Parents, please consider the amount of debt your children will graduate with. </p>
<p>Also, please view this video segment from CNN about a recent NYU graduate.</p>
<p>[The</a> Cost of College: Dream school, nightmare debt amFIX - CNN.com Blogs](<a href=“http://amfix.blogs.cnn.com/2010/05/25/the-cost-of-college-dream-school-nightmare-debt/]The”>http://amfix.blogs.cnn.com/2010/05/25/the-cost-of-college-dream-school-nightmare-debt/)</p>
<p>Parents, get pass the ‘bragging rights’ of the dream schools and help your kids chose financially realistic schools My D opted for a state college which had a great program for her major. This past winter she got a winter break internship within her field (as a freshman). The were 5 kids accepted for this internship - 2 from Cornell and two others from other ‘name’ schools. D did just fine and got another paid internship this summer with the same corporation. My D will graduate with about $15-20K in debt, a manageable amount. If she attended some place like Cornell, it probably would be $60-80K. Graduates of all these schools, whether Ivy or state U will be competing for the same entry level manager trainee jobs. Once you get that first job, it doesn’t really matter really where your degree is from. You are judged and promoted on your skills and abilities.</p>
<p>I wish these types of financial debt/student loan hardship stories would run in late winter and early spring when kids and parents are finalizing the college decision, when there is still time to consider the future financial implications of student debt.</p>
<p>Student debt(s) listed in the articles is just horrible. Though this is all due students action of taking the debt with the interest rate etc… So although a 275k debt is not suggest for NYU, if a student knows the consciousness it can be aviodable or better mentally/ physically managable to some extent.</p>
<p>based on reading the first part.</p>
<p>“Endicott told her that with her degree in hospitality management she could make $50,000 a year”</p>
<p>even in good times, is that realistic? I have never heard of endicott. I don’t want to get all status focused, but it doesnt have the pull, or the network, in hosp management that say Cornell does, does it? </p>
<p>I agree very much that taking out big loans for lower tier schools is a VERY questionable strategy. I think the validity of simply extrapolating that to the top tier schools, is, well, not that obvious.</p>
<p>Do the data support the panic? The chart indicates average indebtedness of 23k. That should be manageable for most employed college grads. The question of what public policy should do about the difficulties of loan repayment when unemployment is over 9% is a different question. OTOH is the table including all debt?</p>
<p>Now 23k means some significant number of folks have much higher loans, but presumably many of those folks are headed to more lucrative fields. </p>
<p>The nightmare often presented here is someone with over 80k debt, looking for a job in musical theater, say. But how common is that scenario?</p>
<p>after reading the second part</p>
<p>The comments are interesting. </p>
<p>The article didnt say what the young lady in question majored in, did they?</p>
<p>wrt NYU</p>
<p>is this data incorrect?</p>
<p>[New</a> York University Tuition, Costs and Financial Aid - CollegeData College Profile](<a href=“http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg03_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=436]New”>http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg03_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=436)</p>
<p>The numbers on COA seem inconsistent with what was in the article and comments above.</p>
<p>also this</p>
<p>Average Award $26,823
Need-Based Gift Received by 2,292 (97.1%) of aid recipients, average amount $19,391 </p>
<p>seems to contradict some of what I have heard about NYU here. My impression reading college con was that they give almost only loans, and no grants. The above seems to suggest otherwise, or am I misreading it?</p>
<p>I know kids who got their most generous offer from NYU. They got more than what they needed, in fact, since they got merit within need. When you average that out, that means kids are getting gapped, since they are not getting their need met whereas another student is getting more than their need met. </p>
<p>The fact of the matter, is that the COA for NYU is lower than what most kids will spend. There is so much to do in the Village, and eating at the cafeteria is a drag, and not particularly a bargain. So you have a high cost to start. The need based award does include PELL, TAP, SEOGH which can make up a significant amount of that $19K for low income students. Throw in the merit within need, and you can get some nice numbers.</p>
<p>Be aware that the loan numbers do not include outside loans and PLUS. When you include all of that, NYU kids come out with a lot of debt. </p>
<p>I just went through this with a friend whose daughter got an inadequate aid package from a school that has a similar profile. She has a zero EFC. The school did give her PELL, SEOG, some state grant-- all government aid that added up to about $13K right there. They then gave her a a $15k grant from the school which comes to a generous $28K, the rest are loans, which still leaves about a $12K gap which is not gonna cut it for a family with a zero EFC. They probably won’t qualify for PLUS which will increase the Stafford, and the girl is going to have to work this summer and accumulate about $5K. Realistically, she is going to have to work during the year as well. The true COA of a school is no where reflected in the figure, any more than NYU costing just another $1K over average room and board plan.</p>
<p>The parent looking at that school’s profile thought it was generous. Still it gapped someone with a zero EFC. Oddly, to me anyways, it seems that the kids that gapped more are the ones with higher need. That way the % of kids getting a large % of need met is more impressive. Also for low EFC kids a 20% gap can mean over $10K and that’s after a loan package of over $10K a year. For kids with just a little need, say $5K, a 20% gap means just $1K that has to be met.</p>
<p>The other thing is perspective. My college kid got a very nice merit grant of $25K from a school. Really a big deal, in my opinion. But the COA of that school is about $55K. That means there is still a long way to go to fund that amount of money. Especially when the state school is coming in at around $20k before a touch of merit money.</p>
<p>“Especially when the state school is coming in at around $20k before a touch of merit money”</p>
<p>Did you get merit offers at your state school? Our DD ended up not applying to our two state flagships, but I do not think she would have gotten much if any merit aid there. The next state schools down might have given her $$ (again I do not know,as never really researched that) but they did not have the programs she is interested on, aside from other negatives. So with similar numbers to you (at RPI) our parental expenditure is not really different from what it would have been at our state flagships. The difference is that DD will end up graduating with about 40k in stafford and perkins loans. Which I think is reasonable for RPI, esp given that our state flagships are large and I do not think would have been a good match for my D’s personality.</p>
<p>I have repeatedly stated on this board that high income families with very smart kids are no longer applying to the high dollar schools. The expensive schools have become the haven for the super rich and the high achieving UM and low income. Not sure why I was slammed so hard for that. When the 50,000 tuition really means 50,000 tuition, it is really not affordable for the professional family with multiple kids. Since large numbers of the kids of doctors, lawyers, scientists and educators represent the high income, but not rich, many of the country’s most capable kids are not even including these schools on their lists. Saddling yourself with extreme debt is no longer a reasonable thing to do.</p>
<p>“The expensive schools have become the haven for the super rich and the high achieving UM and low income. Not sure why I was slammed so hard for that.”</p>
<p>Because for the most part they are even less affordable for low income.</p>
<p>NEW TO THIS SITE. Is there any Canadian graduate 2010 has good new by IVY schools?</p>
<p>Who is rich? Who is middle class? What determines those categories? Those who are deemed most in need of support are those who qualify for the PELL. If you look at certain financial aid data, you can see how many PELL eligible kids are at a given school. Not many when it comes to the more selective schools. You can also see the percent of students who qualify for financial aid. For the selective schools, it looks like about half the students so qualify. That can give you an idea as to who is going to college. </p>
<p>Of the half who are paying full freight, who are the rich, and who are the ones who are making a good living, but have to work to pay the bills, will leave a small amount of money to the kids, certainly not enough that they will not have to work? </p>
<p>My kids went to a private school that have some truly wealthy families as part of their community. When you look at the annual fund brochure, there are families giving over a million dollars. But not that many. Most of the kids in my son’s graduating class are from well to do, but not wealthy families. They feel every tuition check they write. They are paying full freight and for private schools because they have education as a high priority in their lives. </p>
<p>We belong in that category. Doing the numbers, we just cannot pay full freight for all of our kids. Would love to do so, but it would mean compromising the quality of life and health of other family members. We have both grandmoms living with us and have some extended but dear family members who have had some serious health issues that put them in crisis mode. My husband’s business took a dive a few years ago, and we are still recovering from that. BUt we live a good life, and I can’t put us on any priority list for financial aid.</p>
<p>Brooklynborndad, I live in your state of birth. Yes, two of our kids did get merit money from SUNY Buffalo. None from Binghamton or Geneseo. I don’t remember if Albany offered anything because it was well off the list by the time their materials arrived. SUNY Maritime offered a full ride+ extra money along with guaranteed summer work at premium wages. Not that much from Buffalo. The son who went there got $3500 a year (lost it the first year), the second one was offered $2500, but did not go there. </p>
<p>Some state U’s do offer attractive scholarships to their top students and maybe smaller awards to a number of select students. I know that friends in PA, with kids at the Honors College got similar awards as my sons did in NY. Friends in Ohio didn’t get a dime from Ohio State. They were good enough students with high enough stats to get some merit money at private colleges, but that just brought that high cost down to Ohio State level.</p>
<p>cpt</p>
<p>I do not live in my state of birth. I live in Virginia. Our top state schools are excellent, but AFAICT they are not noted for being generous with merit aid. Given that they seem to value GPA more than SAT’s (and our kid was high SAT, not so high GPA), that they like geographic (within the state) diversity while we are not only from over represented NoVa but our DD goes to super-over represented TJ, and other factors, I doubt she would have been considered enough of a top student to get merit aid at Vtech. At UVA, I am not sure she would even have been admitted.</p>
<p>"Who is rich? "</p>
<p>Ben Zoma says:
Who is rich?
The one who appreciates what he has…
(Talmud—Avot 4:1)</p>
<p>Sorry, couldn’t resist.</p>
<p>I know kids who got their most generous offer from NYU. They got more than what they needed, in fact, since* they got merit** within need. When you average that out, that means kids are getting gapped, since they are not getting their need met whereas another student is getting more than their need met. *</p>
<p>Since only 5% of NYU students get merit aid (and not all of its colleges give merit) that suggests that no one can count on merit aid, and that it is carefully and selectively given to certain students for super top stats, URM status, and/or regional desirability.</p>
<p>That said, I could see if when a student only or mostly applies to “need-only” schools and has a high income, then a merit recipient from NYU would have its most generous offer from NYU.</p>