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<p>Actually this is not true. Princeton education cost is same for everyone, whether you are borrowing or not. If you weren’t borrowing, the money you wouldn’t have used for education could have been earning interest also, 10 years later you would have a lot more than 198K.</p>
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<p>PhD on WS wouldn’t be making seven or eight-figure. Bachelor and MBA would.</p>
<p>What do people do with PhD anyway, other than going into academic. A professor in economics or business may make 6 figure, but it probably isn’t the case for humanities.</p>
<p>Kate got an eight figure pay-off with a BA in Art History!</p>
<p>She probably wouldn’t have with a PhD.</p>
<p>Right, that’s my point. To be clear - I don’t begrudge anyone making whatever amount of money the market bears – if it’s seven or eight figures, more power to you. (Though I’ll also note that the people I know with that kind of income didn’t have elite college degrees at all - they built businesses through creativity, sales acumen and sweat, and then sold those businesses.) But I think there is a level of arrogance in a young person setting out to earn that kind of money and deciding that his / her whole educational path will be pointed solely towards that goal of maximizing the dollars, as opposed to learning for the sake of learning, exploring different fields, etc. I think it’s very disheartening how many elite schools (my alma mater included) are turning into let’s-just-prep-for-Wall-Street. </p>
<p>The example from my own school is the MMSS (mathematical methods in the social sciences) program. I was one of the earlier classes. Econ was still the most popular co-major, but plenty of students also double-majored in psych, soc, anthropology, etc. And they did all kinds of really neat things - some into academia, some into govt, some into non-profit, some into business. That’s what made it all so fun. Nowadays? It’s considered the pre-professional program and “success” is measured by how many people go into banking and how high their salaries are. I find it really depressing how the focus has narrowed.</p>
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<p>This is true. Also, if you want a quant job, you are better off getting a degree in physics or engineering, really. </p>
<p>But, and I know you know this Oldfort, so this isn’t a refutation of what you are saying, but a reality check for people who “want to go into finance.” The attrition in finance before one gets to the money job is really high. The percentage who go into finance versus the percentage who stay and can actually put up the numbers is verrry small. It’s not automatic, and you can’t really even “learn” how to do a certain amount of it. Some of it is just the way you react to pressure, how your mind works, and intuition…which nobody “talks” about, but which all the best guys/gals have. </p>
<p>The other thing about finance is that unless you’ve got the stamina to work a 12-14 hour day and then get up all night long for a minute or two at a time, etc…and stay sharp, you’re not really going anywhere, either. It’s a really brutal job, physicall, psychologically and mentally. It’s not just, “Hey, I’m gong in to finance for a living.” </p>
<p>FWIW</p>
<p>It can be really exciting for a certain type of person, and this is why they recruit well-educated athletes and people who have been in the greek system at well-respected schools. It’s got a lot of components.</p>
<p>If D1 could marry someone who could support her or pay for a large share of costs, she would love to be a party planner and own a ballet studio. As D1 would prefer to marry for love someday, she is willing to suck it up to work like crazy so she could pursue her true passion someday. </p>
<p>When people finish with schooling, they will need to be able to support themselves. There is something to be said about learning for the sake of learning, but at the end of day, someone’s major in school will have an impact on getting a job later. A liberal arts education does “push” students to get a well rounded education. D1, aside from taking math/econ courses, she has taken many art history, history, gender studies courses in school.</p>
<p>Of course when people finish with schooling, they will need to be able to support themselves. But it gets put out on CC that the only real way to support oneself is through gotta-go-to-Wall-Street - as if, if you don’t make seven figures, you’re making lattes at Starbucks. It’s like the board collectively seems to be unaware that there are really well-paying white collar jobs in a multitude of fields, and Wall Street hardly has the monopoly in enabling one to be self-supporting. I just think it’s very narrow thinking.</p>
<p>poetgirl - you are absolutely right in your assessment. It is something I was going to point out, going into Wall Street takes a certain type of person. I have seen people breakdown and cry at work because they couldn’t do it or take it. They have been trying to recruit more women into the business, but it has been difficult. </p>
<p>People on CC may remember even earlier on I have always said D1 is a good negotiator and she is grace under fire. When people tell her no, she’ll find a way to turn it into a yes. When there is an emergency, she could be calm and direct people what to do. She is a nudge.</p>
<p>At those interviews, they like to ask brain teasers not just to see how smart someone is, but to get to know a candidate’s thought process, and see how a person handles pressure. </p>
<p>There are many different type of jobs in IB and they require different type of personality: S&T (think fast, and short term task, good under pressure, social), investment banking (thinker, long term assignment), structurer (very focused, anal, attention to detail, good under pressure)…</p>
<p>I worked with a structurer many years ago, who was definitely smarter than me, but he was all over the place and was afraid to pull the trigger to say it was done. He knew more about the market because he was always reading Bloomberg and talking to people. Whereas I just wanted to get it done, so we could price it and go home. He would stop working if the model couldn’t handle certain calculations and wait for a programmer to change the model, whereas I would do it on paper/spreadsheet and make manual adjustment to the model. They used to ask this guy to set a deal up initially, and when it got closer to pricing, they would turn it over to me to finish. Eventually the guy was let go. I got tired of getting calls in the middle of night from Asia.</p>
<p>And there are many different types of jobs in the business world that actually produce the goods and services that the i-bankers are financing. This completely gets ignored on CC. You would think that everyone just finances businesses, but the actual work of business gets done by elves. It’s the same thing with consulting. Consulting is great, but it’s like CC ignores that there are actual people running / managing the businesses who then have a need to hire mgt consultants.</p>
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<p>Yes, and from a quality of life perspective, with the exception of a certain type of person, most would probably do better in these places. </p>
<p>The only thing anything like that, which exists in the financial world, is the structured finance Oldfort is discussing. And, even that requires a lot of relationship stuff and a lot of work that sometime comes to nothing. And, if you cannot “get” the pension fund, or whatever, to pull the trigger on your product, the traders and whatnot, who put in a lot of time on your packaging, are going to tire of you and move on to something, or someone, else.</p>
<p>It’s a what have you done for me lately business. Nobody cares what you did last year, or even last month. </p>
<p>I just say this because I see all these people on here who think they or their kid is going into “finance” without even understanding what that means.</p>
<p>Kate? Who is this in reference to?</p>
<p>"Actually this is not true. Princeton education cost is same for everyone, whether you are borrowing or not. If you weren’t borrowing, the money you wouldn’t have used for education could have been earning interest also, 10 years later you would have a lot more than 198K. "</p>
<p>Well, my point is that the ROI calculations in the article cited are inaccurate. It gives a higher ROI for those who have financial aid , assuming that their aid is in the form of grants, not loans. If their aid is in the form of loans, then the ROI is not the same as if their aid is in the form of loans. </p>
<p>It is true that the cost of an education could be calculated to include the loss of investment income. But this gets murky quickly. Not everyone will get the same investment income - it will vary over the market conditions of the period of time , the skill and the style of the investor.</p>
<p>jym626, Kate Middleton.</p>
<p>Sheesh, there is only one Kate. jym626, get with the program</p>
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<p>hmm … I thought the Kate reference was “Kate +8” Kate … I’d vote there are two Kate’s now.</p>
<p>Kate + 8 is so yesterday. I guess someone didn’t wake up at 4am yesterday.</p>
<p>I am at a conference reading on my phone as talks get dull. So apologies for being concrete. I did not get to attend a wedding celebration party but did have to awken painfully early to get to this friggin conference!</p>
<p>And surely kate got more than an 8 figure payoff. The wedding alone es estimated at costimg 50 million, from what I heard on my way to todays conference</p>
<p>Ok, so nobody liked my PhD option. Try this. Go to the best place you can afford, excel, go into a PhD program at an Ivy so that you are a funded graduate student, access the ivy league school’s recruiting, leave with a masters if you get the IB opportunity that you want at that point.</p>