<p>soozievt, You keep advocating your position as to why you paid a lot of money for your kid to go to a good musical theater program while others are continuing to knock high priced schools and especially feel that substantial indebtedness is reckless. </p>
<p>I feel that their are sevreal unrelated arguments here. I fully understand, and I think others do also, that for specialized vocationally oriented p;rograms, you may have to send your kid to a “high priced” or “elite school” over that of your local state university. Certianly, if a quality program isn’t offered in your state university, your child may have little choice. I get it! There are other factors that might mandate this too such as learning disability issues, substantial scholarships from other schools, a need for more focused education via very small classes etc.</p>
<p>HOWEVER, assuming that the state university does offer a decent program in the child’s major field then incurring substantial debt to go elsewhere for the undergrduate studies would be financially irresponsible in my opinion and may very well limit their opportunities regardless of the school’s name! Think of the poor kid who went to NYU and incurred over $150,000 in indebtedness. Do you think that they can afford to take a low paid internships with a movie studio ,which is what would be required, to get their foot in the door? Their opportunies will probably be reduced in that situation. Even with musicall theater, kids might have to work for local playhouses,which don’t normally pay well, in order to get their experience and rise in the field. How can they afford to do this with substantial indebtedness. Yes, it is a catch 22.</p>
<p>In fact, I will even go further in saying that , even if you, as the parent, can pay the cash so that no debt would be incurred, it could be argued that it would be financially irresponsible to do so IF, and I do emphasize IF, your retirement would be severely compromised; however, I do realized that this is a personal decsision. I just don’t agree with it for what its worth.</p>
<p>I just see too many people who are poor in their old age. I just see too many folks wanting handouts and complaining to the government that they need an entitlement which was usually caused by fiscal irresponsibility during their life… I don’t want people to have to eat dog and cat food when they get older because they made too high a sacrifice. I don’t want parents to have to live with their kids because they were financially irresponsible with their own retirements. However, I do get it. I do understand that it isn’t my decision to make no matter how heart breaking it is for me!</p>
<p>Remember , most people at age 50 do NOT have any type of substantial networth. If going to decent, named schools were the answer,this problem wouldn’t exist. </p>
<p>However, “I do get it” regardless of what you may have inferred from my prior posts.</p>
<p>I want to also address another argument going on here. Many folks have this belief that attending a "name ’ school or elite institution will automatically give some signficant “leg up” on admission to a top graduate or professional school. PLEASE speak to admission officers the way I have . Please contact them. Can there be a bit of a leg up if your kid goes to a top name undergraduate school? The answer from most admission folks that I have personally met is that it usually HAS NO AFFECT! Yes, even in the few schools where admissions folks said that it does help, they acknolwledged that it was only a small factor at most! Again, the key factors are usually GPA, and scores ,and recommendations, and maybe research that was incurred. Attending a top undergrad might actually be disadvantageous in fact due to the increased competition too.</p>