HELP ----Is Cal Berkeley Worth 60k-70k in Student Debt VS No loans or Debt at a Lower School ? ? ? ?

[Zinhead]

@juillet -

Strongly disagree. I don’t think a person with a salary of $60-70K a year can pay off loans of $60-70K “very easily.” That’s a monthly payment of $800/month (for 10 years) when your take-home is maybe $4,000 a month. And it also limits post-graduate options - you may have to delay an MBA program, buying a house, investing or other financial choices. $800 is a lot of money every month!

Take a look at the companies that hire out of Haas. They include firms like Accenture, Bain, BlackRock, Blackstone, DT, DB, GS, Google, Lazard, McKinsey, PwC, S&P and William Blair. If the OP’s kid has any ambition, what may be a $70K to $90K starting salary will be a minimum of $150K in less than 10 years at any of these firms. $70,000 in student loans is a small price to pay to start your career at one of the elite companies in the US, and they these firms love hiring athletes from elite schools.

@autinmshauri -

We don’t allow our children to borrow more than we can help them pay back. It’s really easy for people who can pay $60k/year out-of-pocket to say take the risk. It’s easy for your friends and neighbors who are perhaps swayed by the prestige to say it’s a “no brainer,” take the risk. But none of those people are taking the risk – you are. Your son can’t borrow $60k for school; he can only borrow ~$5k/year (~$27k total). You’d have to borrow the rest. Can you afford a ~$43k loan? Do you know how much interest will accumulate on that while your son is in school? If you can’t afford it, I wouldn’t assume a 21-year-old can.

Most of the people who can pay $60k a year out of pocket for school got that way by taking risks and making them pay. Like everything else in life, picking a school is a risk. However, if there is any safe bet, it is attending business school at a major university like UC Berkeley. The payoff will be well worth the costs.