<p>Been hearing some really scary NYU stories…</p>
<p>This daughter of a friend of mine is transferring to NYU and her loans are going to shoot through the roof. The irony is that she has excellent grades and has a chance of getting a full scholarship to cover her last 3 years. She wants to transfer because of NYU’s reputation.</p>
<p>A colleague of mine has a daughter who has been accepted to NYU but wait listed from all of her Ivy League choices. Her parents want her to wait it out and see what happens. But she is dead set on NYU and is not changing her mind. Her parents told her that they could not afford it. Her response has been to apply for financial aid and get a job. And she actually said that NYU has a reputation of taking good care of their students with loans. </p>
<p>I don’t know what these kids are thinking these days? Do they not understand how interest works? </p>
<p>Don’t these kids understand how student loans and debt works? Freaking out over my kids because I don’t want them to make the same mistakes.</p>
<p>First, there is no such thing as a full scholarship to NYU. </p>
<p>Second the story about a kid who is “waitlisted” at Ivies but wants to enroll at NYU where she is accepted makes no sense. The only way she could be accepted at this juncture to NYU is through Early Decision which mean she is committed to attend and can’t choose between schools or wait until April to decide. Further, nobody is waitlisted at Ivies at this point in the year and at most is deferred at schools with Early Action. Also, if she was admitted ED to NYU, she would not apply for Fin. Aid now but would have had to apply for it when she applied for admission.</p>
<p>Further, not all loans are student loans. Perhaps the parents are willing to take some of the loans.There is a limit to how much of the loans are student ones. (My own kid went to NYU and got scholarships, student loans which we will pay, and we also took out parent loans).</p>
<p>I did not co-sign our kids’ student loans (Stafford and Perkins loans) either, though we are paying for them ourselves. However, student loans have a limit and will not cover everything. There are parent loans if the difference needs to be made up.</p>
<p>fendergirl, I could not afford 'em, sorry! I can barely afford them for my own 2 kids! The only reason we had them take the student loans out (as we are paying their educations) is that the interest rates are much lower than on the parent loans and also don’t have to be paid until after they are out of school. We have a lot of loans.</p>
<p>As a kid who made these kinds of mistakes, we do not understand. We do not have the maturity to comprehend how much these sky high loans mean. I had no idea how much trouble I was getting into until it was months and months too late. We need a responsible adult to tell us NO, no matter how much we kick and scream. She won’t be able to get the loans unless her parents cosign, and if they have any sense at all they will refuse to do so. Sometimes we kids need to be protected from ourselves.</p>
<p>I think part of it might be cultural. I’ve noticed from reading a lot of threads in the Financial Aid and Scholarships forum that parents seem to view talking about money with their kids with the same discomfort that you might expect in talking to their kids about their kinky sexual fantasies. Kids might understand the actual numbers involved – ie a loan of X thousand dollars stretched over 20 years adds up to X/monthly, but they don’t understand the other bills that they’ll have to pay at the same time or the importance of saving for retirement. (I think it was mom2collegekids in another thread who mentioned how sometimes people think that a $50k starting salary means that if they have to give up $10,000 annually in loans that means they still have $40,000 as walking-around money). In some of these stories I’ve read in that other forum, I suspect that a lot of the students have never even seen their parents’ household expenses and don’t have a clue how much it would cost to finance even a crappy apartment with minimal luxuries after graduation.</p>
<p>And if they don’t have that down, they probably don’t understand interest rates, present vs. future value of a principal, and how capitalization of deferred interest can turn a relatively small loan into a behemoth. They definitely don’t understand how credit scores work or even realize that private lenders evaluate borrowers every year and not just once. In a lot of cases, I’m not even sure the parents understand those last couple of things either; I know because it’s part of my job, but fully understanding finance can be a full-time job in and of itself. It’s often tragically too late to try and hurriedly teach someone about all of these things in the middle of their freshman year of college.</p>
<p>This is something I dont understand- I have been involved in education since before I had children ( & since the oldest will be 29 this yr., that’s a while)</p>
<p>Living on the west coast, even socializing with academics, I have never gotten the impression that NYU is this amazing school where it is worth hocking your firstborn to attend.</p>
<p>I know profs who teach there & plan to until they retire, but they are New yorkers & going back was always their intent.</p>
<p>I know several of my kids friends who attended Columbia or Barnard, but for some reason only one who attended NYU & she had to drop out despite loving her program.
( her single mother died when she was a sophomore & although friends & family scraped the money together for her to finish the year, there is only so much you can do)</p>
<p>It seems like there are more students on these boards who are fixated on a certain school, or echelon of school. Because they have " worked hard and they deserve it".</p>
<p>To me- they seem * very insecure* & afraid. Only schools A-K will get them set up in life, the others are too risky. Seems if they have actually learned as much as they profess, they would be able to eke out an excellent education at any number of schools- without compromising their ability to find work or their parent’s retirement.</p>
<p>Gardna, I think you are absolutely right. I wonder about the parents that won’t talk to their kids about it…is it discomfort or inability? </p>
<p>I suspect the parents might not actually understand it either. They might know enough, intuitively, to say a particular loan is too high, but they lack enough of an understanding of personal finance to be able to spell it out with a paper and pencil to their kid. There is certainly a lot of evidence out there to suggest this is actually over the heads of the average American adult.</p>
<p>You are right. New poster, generic story that doesn’t add up, and it could easily have said the same thing without the NYU details. </p>
<p>Plenty of well branded colleges remain out of the reach of young people that do not understand personal finance and magically believe it will all come together if they get to go there. I blame it on Disneyeque movies, lol…you know, if you just dream big, follow your dreams, and don’t let anyone or anything stop you! </p>
<p>But nothing to do with NYU. Choosing an Ivy school that requires the same amount of debt over one that provides a full scholarship is just as foolish and risky.</p>
<p>starbright, NYU has a rep for bad FA, something that is not true of the Ivies. I agree, however, that the story doesn’t make sense.</p>
<p>I have a niece with a trust fund that covered all costs who graduated from the Tisch school and has been successful in her field–a performing art–by most standards. But I really do not see NYU undergrad as generally worth the $$ involved for most students.</p>
<p>Yes, it is very odd for a brand new member to start such a thread and in the cafe which is not about colleges. And why even mention NYU as NYU is not even germane to the question? And the facts in the first post don’t even make logical sense.</p>
<p>I agree with Emerald that you can get a fine education at many schools. That said, people seem to like to bash NYU (same with Ivies). My kid went to NYU/Tisch. The school was a perfect fit for what she was seeking and suited her extremely well. She is in a specialized field and they offer a great program in her field. Yes, it is an expensive school (though was worth it to us). But by the same token, she received a substantial scholarship which lowered the price significantly and we also have taken out loans to pay a part over time. No regrets and in fact, we are thrilled with the experiences she had there. While she has graduated, she even works for them in a professional capacity in her field, among other work she does outside of Tisch in her field. I think her relationship with the school will go on for some time. (my other D loved her Ivy and got some good aid there too…and at this very moment, is working for them too!)</p>
<p>I know. You don’t have to be on CC very long to get this well understood :). I didn’t say needing fin aid, I said debt. This much debt to go to any school does not make sense to me. Lots of evidence suggesting the ROI (in strict financial terms) is not THAT much better at some other school.</p>