<p>How much do you think is a reasonable amount to borrow for grad school? You all speak about undergrad, but there is no alternative to loans when it comes to grad school.</p>
<p>My H and I both attended undergrad funded by scholarships, money we earned ourselves, and money from our parents. We both entered grad school debt-free and came out the same way. Now our D will have no debt at all upon graduation from college. </p>
<p>The day she was born, we set up a college fund and had $50 automatically deducted from my paycheck every month for that fund. When I was promoted at work, I would put most - if not all - of that raise into her college fund. We drive old cars and we live in the same house we bought 22 years ago. We are naturally frugal people and honestly don’t feel we have “sacrificed” anything in the last 22 years. </p>
<p>I realize that we are lucky in many ways - we’ve had good health, for example, and we’ve been pretty much able to stay “on target”, savings-wise. Also, we only had the one child (a conscious decision.) However, I lost my job when D was a junior in high school, so we had to suspend our college savings. Since we had saved for so long, we still had enough money to pay for her college expenses - which was a huge relief, a huge blessing, during those first panicky days of job-loss-trauma.</p>
<p>It has all worked out well for us. D is immensely grateful for her "free"education. We are happy that it worked out this way, for us and for her.</p>
<p>It depends what type of grad/professional school the person is attending. There ARE options for getting funded grad school. Some employers will pay part/all of the cost of grad school for their valued staff that meet criteria. Some grad/pro programs and degrees provide partial/full funding for desired candidates. The cost of the additional education needs to be weighed against what is expected to be gained from the additional training.</p>
<p>My S was hired by employer who has a program to pay for grad school; I know others whose employers have also paid for grad school of their employees. My BFs in college were able to get funded programs for a MS in ecology and PhD in Econ. A friend’s D has a funded PhD program – she’s doing research on heart valves. Another friend is working at CC & entitled to free tuition, so she’s decided to get a PhD.</p>
<p>Some programs are tied to specific schools, some are tied to jobs, some are from fed govt or military. It is worthwhile exploring options and in deciding when and whether to go for additional schooling before taking on more debt in the HOPE that more degrees are better and more marketable.</p>
<p>A friend just hired a man with THREE masters degrees. She was only able to get him him funded as a 89 day emergency hire with NO benefits & $20/hour. He is likely over-qualified for the job, but grateful to have one.</p>
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<p>That’s not quite correct. Mr. Fang didn’t pay a penny for his PhD in Computer Science. Many graduate students get support from their schools. </p>
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<p>Depends on the school, depends on the subject. For medical school-- a lot. For a master’s degree in acting- zero. For a PhD in computer science-- nothing, the department should be supporting you. For law school, except at a top school-- nothing, you won’t be able to pay it back.</p>
<p>Some fields offer much better funding than others, some have a LOT better post-pro-degree placement & prospects than others, so it’s important for the student to do his/her careful study of the options before assuming that incurring huge debt is the only way to get grad/pro school.</p>
<p>Even with med school & other fields, be careful on how much debt is incurred as it can limit your options as to what you do when you get your MD.</p>
<p>I agree that professional schools (MD, JD, DPT, DPM, DDS) are not funded and loans are the norm. Just important to enter into these loans with NO preexisting undergrad loans these days. But lots of masters and PhD programs are funded. D1’s BF is a PhD student in chemistry. He was flown all expenses paid to visiting days for accepted students, and all programs offered tuition and a living stipend. While he is having to live very frugally for 5 years since he chose to live in a small apartment sans roommate, he will incur no loans for grad school.</p>
<p>My friend’s D who is working on heart valves is also funded through grants–all tuition, room & board and additional funds are all covered. I really worry about students who are taking out loans for pro schools on TOP of significant UG loans! Some have loans in excess of $200K! That’s heavy!</p>
<p>My d. has a 5/6-year fellowship for her Ph.D. that pays very well on top of free tuition. It is not a field where there is any money to be made.</p>
<p>The interesting thing is that, relative to the assets of those in the top 10% of the population, COA at prestige private colleges has NOT gone up faster than assets. At least until two years ago (don’t know now), prestige privates were at their least expensive in 30 years. But the difference today is that many more people think they “deserve” a place at the prestige privates (even though their now well-heeled parents went to state schools.) However, the cost of state schools are, in some places, truly soaring, especially when one takes into account that, because of budget cuts, it is extremely difficult to finish in four years. Those who are truly suffering (as always) are the working poor, especially as transferring from community colleges, in some states, has become iffy, and Pell Grants are being cut.</p>
<p>There are some scholarships for some med/law schools but they are not common.ANd funding for grad school is less easy to come by than it use to be. Grant money, traineeship money, all being tightened in budget cuts, etc.</p>
<p>Oh wow, after reading some of the posts in this thread I’m extremely grateful for my parents and for the scholarships I’ve gotten. If I come out of undergrad with any debt (and that’s fortunately a big if, because I have a lot of scholarship opportunities), it shouldn’t be more than a few thousand dollars.</p>
<p>We were very very concerned abou D taking on loan debt for undergrad and this influenced her college choice (but was not the deciding factor and I told her she did not have to go to her cheapest option if she did not like it.) D is both lucky and hardworking. Due to her good h.s. record she got some merit aid along with FA at her rather pricey private school. She/we will actually end up spending less than if she went to a SUNY (our state school). We started a 529 account back when so we are using that in part to pay the EFC and the rest from cash flow/gifts. So for undergrad she will have no loans nor will we. She wants to be a librarian/archvist- not a big pay kind of job. She will have decide if she goes to the ok state program nearby ($6K per year and can live at home) or the top notch private program (Syracuse for $41K per year ) and how to pay for it. I will be approaching retirement so we told her grad school is on her dime- which she is just fine with.</p>
<p>kinderny,
We basically did not have a question. D. went on full tuition Merit scholarship to state school. Had tremendous experiences there, well beyond any expectations that we had, got accepted to few Med. Schools and choose to go to the most expensive one, becasue we told her not to pay any attention to cost at this point, since her UG was free. We are clse to retirment, which makes it easier to pay for education because of 401k. We have no plans to retire though, with understanding that we might be just kicked out because of our age. Oh, well, that is why we have decided to take one year at a time. First year at Med. School we are paying. We have no other debts, no mortgage, no car loans, no other dependents. We will evaluate every year.<br>
I do not know if our D. experience is applicable to your D’s situation. She did not have any regrets going to state school after graduating #1 from private prep. HS.</p>
<p>Loans are not a bad thing, per se. They are a way of paying for education with discounted dollars. And, for many parents, our income goes up as we get older.</p>
<p>The problem is debt burden beyond what is reasonable for a young person to be saddled with.</p>
<p>Who wouldn’t be concerned if your child is heavily burdened with debt? I’m sure all parents want to help their children to rise from student loan. There are a number of students nowadays who are taking out a student loan, why not? When it is the most guaranteed way of paying tuition fees. Student life is not easy when you don’t have money to pay for your expenses so I think they are many people who indulge in student loan because of financial rough. Another student burden is the student credit card debt. Credit card debt is just as bad as student loan. The worst thing about it is students both suffer this two kinds of debt. College charge cards were a major target of charge card reform. The Federal Reserve has recently released a study on the state of university charge cards. Since the 2009 CARD Act put limitations on how charge card corporations can industry to pupils, the amount of applications has gone down significantly. Regardless of this drop, credit card corporations are still providing $73 million per year to schools whose pupils have charge card debt. Here is the proof: [Colleges</a> still receive $73 million from credit card companies](<a href=“Personal Money Network”>Personal Money Network).</p>