<p>I would say I am with the parents against taking out loans for their child if the said child is majoring in something that will have no return on investment i.e. ALL NON-STEM MAJORS. Only a foolish parent will be reluctant to invest in a child who will major in engineering.</p>
<p>I am a stupid parent who has agreed to take $80K in loans so that my kid could attend very elite dream school. Could have gone to most privates or public schools ranked above 40 and I would not have to take any loans. Please tear me to pieces now.</p>
<p>^ Why would someone tear you apart? That was a choice YOU made. </p>
<p>Now, if you wanted to tell other parents that they SHOULD be taking out loans for THEIR kids… there might be cause to “tear you to pieces” (but not really)</p>
<p>Disclaimer: If anyone does say anything to you…you asked for it! :D</p>
<p>OP, I agree with you! It’s selfish for parents to not at least try to help their children realize their dreams. If I worked hard for four years and got into my elite dream school and my parents sent me to a cheap state school, I’d be plenty upset about that. Education is absolutely the most important investment that one can make. And there’s a reason why more kids want to go to Stanford than University of Alaska, because the quality of education is much better.</p>
<p>Why would the average middle class not want to take on another $80k debt on top of a mortgage, car, ect.? $80 000 is not chump change, especially if the parent is also relied on to help that student pay for housing food, ect. What if they have two kids? That now becomes $160 000, 3 kids is $240 000. What then if their children want graduate or medical school, are they expected to be able to pay for a top postgraduate degree as well? I certainly think that parents who can should try to help financially support their kid’s education, but taking on these enormous fees just for a slight bump in the prestige of an undergrad degree is insane, and any student who expects their parents to entirely foot these bills is just flat out entitled.</p>
<p>Besides it isn’t like there aren’t any top public schools out there is it? There are opportunities to can get a degree from a top 30 school for a lot less than $80000.</p>
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<p>Job and career prospects do vary by major, but not neatly by STEM vs. non-STEM.</p>
<p><a href=“https://career.berkeley.edu/Major/Major.stm[/url]”>https://career.berkeley.edu/Major/Major.stm</a> (career survey from a public school) lists for the class of 2012 some average pay levels:</p>
<p>$95,370 Computer Science
$83,139 Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
$71,488 Applied Mathematics
$62,719 Business Administration
$57,537 Economics
$54,602 Environmental Economics and Policy
$52,823 Bioengineering
$47,535 Political Science
$44,537 Media Studies
$44,384 History
$43,639 Sociology
$43,589 English
$42,888 Environmental Sciences
$42,359 Psychology
$39,529 Integrative Biology
$38,829 Nutritional Sciences
$38,523 Molecular and Cell Biology</p>
<p>Note that STEM majors span the whole range of new graduate pay levels. If there is any pattern here, it is that biology-type majors (the most popular type of STEM majors) tend to result in poor job and career prospects at graduation.</p>
<p>Also, note that job markets can change over the course of four years, so a major chosen purely for job prospects may not be as good in that respect at graduation time as when the student enters as a frosh. Computer science in 1999 and 2003 and civil engineering in 2005 and 2009 are typical examples.</p>
<p>If the private college is really that selective, they probably offer only need based aid.
Then depending on your EFC, it may be cheaper than a public- or
Not.
;)</p>
<p>First of all, you CAN get a good job with something other than a STEM degree, that is a gross generalization, sure some of the STEM fields are hot right now but that doesn’t mean they will be 10 or 20 years in the future or that other degrees are worthless. A STEM degree does not guarantee success.</p>
<p>@ucbalumnus: Still have an axe to grind against the Life Sciences?
When analyzed carefully, the bulk of data to disputes the idea that the life sciences are especially lower paying than other sciences (psychology related fields tend to dominate the bottom, chemistry and biology related fields averaging out to be in the middle with physics a bit above). However, there is a substantial variability in the prospects of different sub-fields of the life sciences (and the other natural sciences as well), and most every study shows that bachelors in fields such as computer science or engineering have better prospects then bachelors degrees in the natural sciences, mainly because bachelors in bio/chem/physics aren’t really set up to be as sufficient a being terminal degrees as something like computer science.</p>
<p>Actually the way I justify my decision is that my kid cannot handle STEM so it will be some cream-puff major. Economics without much math at best. At least maybe she can find job with fancy diploma.
Conversation with my daughter:
Her: I want to go to X.
Me: We cannot afford X - it is the most expensive school in the country.
Next day. Comes from school:
Her: I talked to all my friends and they all said that if they were accepted to X they would make their parents pay.
We are not a rich town. These kids are delusional. Hopefully they all will also apply to our dreaded state flagship. Interesting to see where they will end up.</p>
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</p>
<p>No, just reporting what almost every career survey reports.</p>
<p>Here are more:</p>
<p><a href=“http://gecd.mit.edu/sites/default/files/graduation12.pdf[/url]”>http://gecd.mit.edu/sites/default/files/graduation12.pdf</a>
[Virginia</a> Tech Post-Graduation Report: Salaries reported](<a href=“http://www.career.vt.edu/scripts/PostGrad2006/Report/DetailReportSalaries.asp?College=00&Majors=Y&Cohort=2011-2012]Virginia”>http://www.career.vt.edu/scripts/PostGrad2006/Report/DetailReportSalaries.asp?College=00&Majors=Y&Cohort=2011-2012)</p>
<p>Even more:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/internships-careers-employment/1121619-university-graduate-career-surveys-5.html#post15975553[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/internships-careers-employment/1121619-university-graduate-career-surveys-5.html#post15975553</a></p>
<p>We did this before remember? If we are going to do it again we should just reactivate that old thread. Or, you could just go to that same thread and re-read my analysis of how much of the data in your own sources are inconsistent with theory.</p>
<p>For example your Virginia tech source shows that the Biology and biochemistry majors actually have some of the lowest unemployment rates of all the sciences at 15% and 27% versus an average of 34% for the college of sciences. However I would add that this source has very small sample sizes for many majors, (eg. physics had just 6 respondents) so I personally wouldn’t use it, but that’s just me.</p>
<p>Again your MIT source is also a victim of small sample size, where the top earner by salary is Media Arts and Science at a whopping $81667 (above all the engineering degrees)… based on averages from a grand total of 3 respondents.</p>
<p>The problem is that your are trying to use yearly school reports to predict industry trends, which is not what they are designed to do. In addition to the small sample sizes, they suffer from sample bias because they look only at a regional population, at one university in one city.</p>
<p>Where is your evidence about the rosy job prospects for biology graduates? It certainly is not evident in the <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/internships-careers-employment/1121619-university-graduate-career-surveys-5.html#post15975553[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/internships-careers-employment/1121619-university-graduate-career-surveys-5.html#post15975553</a> .</p>
<p>I picked through that same list of sources last time (if you can find the thread with our old debate I refer you to that) and if you really want I can do it again, but it will have to wait until tomorrow evening since it is after 1am where I am and I have work tomorrow. </p>
<p>FYI: I am arguing the null hypothesis (ie. there is no significant difference- ie. biology is not abnormally high or low in terms of employment prospect in the sciences) You are arguing the alternate hypothesis (There IS a significant difference between Biology and the rest of the sciences) If you review your STATS101 you will find that the burden of proof is on the alternate hypothesis. </p>
<p>Still I had some good sources in our last debate and I am sure I can dig them up again along with some fresh ones if need be.</p>
<p>Goodnight</p>
<p>(And sorry to everyone else that myself and ucbalumnus have kinda hijacked this thread away from the original message)</p>
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</p>
<p>Good for you! In another 20-some years, check back in with us to tell us all about it.</p>
<p>The OP earlier stated that one should work until age 70 to maximize SS payouts. I wonder if he realizes that those living strictly on SS, without benefit of any other retirement income, often have to make choices between eating or buying medicine. That $340/ month investment into a retirement account would certainly make retired life much easier. Given that Americans are living much longer lives, it is not unusual to see couples living into their 80’s or even 90’s. My Mom is now 87 and can afford to live at home with round-the clock care due to frugal living and lifetime saving. My parents paid for us to attend state schools and we all did very well. I am so happy knowing my mom is now comfortable and lacks for nothing in her elder years. I wonder if the OP will be willing to support his/her parents in their “golden years” with the added income he will earn as the result of attending a “top” school???</p>
<p>BTW OP, it currently costs around a quarter million dollars to raise a child to age 18. I would argue that parents owe their children nothing after age 18, although that is not what our family has chosen for our children. Our kids (4) will all have graduated with no debt (parent or student), but to do so we did put strict limits on what we would spend for each. Our kids were thankful for the help and grateful to enter the working world debt free. You come off as spoiled and entitled and if you were my child I would be embarrassed by your values. </p>
<p>I talked to a young nursing student who was removing my surgery staples today. She is a first generation college student with parents who do not speak English. She works 2 full time jobs while putting herself through school and contributing financially to her family. She will have her Masters in 2 more years. She is so grateful to her parents to be able to live in their rental with her extended family of 9 so she can afford school. She truly appreciates her education as she has worked so hard for it. I believe that if the OP were put in a similar situation, he/she would quickly be a college drop-out!</p>
<p>“Why are parents so reluctant to take out loans?”</p>
<p>Because you have to pay those loans back . . . with interest.</p>
<p>OK … while the OP’s post was extreme I do not think the point was that far off. There are more posts on CC about families refusing to take loans and refusing to let their kids take loans than there are from families taking out $100,000 in loans. Why does it have to be one of the extremes?</p>
<p>I agree kids can do fine coming from a ton of possible schools. I also believe some schools are better fits (and sometimes much better fits) than others. So for a kid whose safety is a mediocre large public state U and whose much-much better fit is a LAC I think it far from nuts for the student to take out $20k in loans and the parents to take out another $20k in loans to allow the kid to have what is likely to be a better college experience. In many cases these are parents who take out $20k loans to get a car (or make lease payments that are equivalent of such a loan payment) … yet, on CC, a parent making a college loan payment, any college loan payment, is often treated as making the worst financial decision possible. To me I find the argument against all student loans ironic and in most cases probably contradictory.</p>
<p>Frankly after a reasonable mortgage paying my kids education is next best reason I would carry a (small) loan … IMO it’s sure a lot better reason to carry debt than buying a new car, carrying credit card debt, remodeling the kitchen, etc … the myriad of reasons people carry debt.</p>