<p>The poster who is taking out $200,000 WHICH WILL increase dramatically with interest later on is an idiot for paying that much money. It is better to go to a state school on full scholarship than to go to NYU paying $200,000. </p>
<p>I would never imagine loaning that much money. If I had to loan a high amount, it would be 100K, and even loaning that much is a lot and I wouldn’t take that loan to go to NYU. If it was Princeton, that might sound more reasonable. </p>
<p>I get this feeling the poster keeps objecting to the comments of other people and wrote their post defending the man in the video because he or she has their own insecurities about their debt.</p>
<p>You can still back out now if you want and try to go to a school you rejected, or defer a year if that is the case. Otherwise, good luck at NYU.</p>
<p>When I was considering schools NYU was at the top of my list as well but I just couldn’t afford it. Rule-of-thumb as I remember it was that the max debt you can accumulate as an undergrad was no more than the salary of your first job once you graduate. On average I think it wouldn’t be more than 40-45k but then again some majors can expect much higher starting salaries and therefore could assume more debt. </p>
<p>I agree about attending your state’s flagship university or honor’s college. That is what I did and then attended NYU for graduate school.</p>
<p>^ That’s a smart idea. Btw I’m a current NYU student and I’ve taken classes up at Geneseo over the summer and it’s great there…my sister is going there for college as well!</p>
<p>@Jassy12 - Except you forget that most college grads do not go on to grad school, nor does it make sense for most college grads to go on to grad school, especially when they’re going to end up with random entry-level office jobs that require no knowledge beyond HS, if even. </p>
<p>Personally I chose to attend NYU because it was a good fit for me and I got a scholarship. If not, you can bet I would’ve headed up to SUNY-something or the other. To think any college - especially NYU, which isn’t even a top school like an ivy or something - is worth that much debt is just laughable.</p>
<p>@light10491
Hahah. If you would have read carefully, I didn’t get a full ride ANYWHERE!!! I don’t know why you’re making up scenarios that don’t even exist.
Besides, who says I will be paying it by myself?
" My own insecurities about my debt"
Well worst comes to worst, I can always file for Bankruptcy.</p>
<p>jassy12: I’m sorry if you are creeped out, but it is very common to check a poster’s “back story” before responding to their post. If you check my previous posts, including those in this thread, you will see that I agree with you that taking on enormous debt for an undergraduate degree is a huge mistake. Where we differ is that you, like the New York Times and several of the other posters here, blame NYU rather than the students—and parents—who knowingly took on those loans. None of the students/parents in the stories you linked to were tricked or deceived into taking on those loans, they CHOSE to. NYU is a private university, not a charity, and they are very up front about the fact that they do not/cannot meet full need. It is not a big secret that pretty much everyone gets “gapped”. Just check the CC financial aid forum—NYU is notorious for bad financial aid. So students who choose to apply to NYU on the off-chance that they will somehow be one of the lucky few who get a scholarship/grant package even remotely close to the cost of attendance and then are bitterly disappointed when they get gapped are not being very realistic. I can’t blame them for trying—it’s a great school in a great city—but if they then face the choice of either crippling debt or a lifetime of “what-ifs”, wouldn’t it have been better not to apply? This is why I ask “where are their parents” ?</p>
<p>Parents, you don’t have to have an Ivy League education to know what a loan is, there are loan calculators on various college and financial websites that will calculate both your total loan amount including interest and your payments, and it costs nothing but your time to sit by your child’s side as they research where to apply. And if you have bad credit and know you won’t qualify for a PLUS loan, why even allow your child to apply to a school like NYU that admittedly does not meet full need? You are just setting them up for disappointment.</p>
<p>And really, even those students whose parents can’t, or won’t, take the time to be involved in their college search have no excuse. If you are smart enough to get in to NYU, you are smart enough to know that loans have to be repaid, either by you or your parents.</p>
<p>jassy12: I wasn’t trying to attack you. I was just curious why fully one third of your posts were flaming NYU when you had no obvious connection to the school. Sorry if you were offended, but this IS an NYU thread and most of the posters here are either NYU students, parents, alumni, or high school students about to matriculate, so it should be no surprise that we might be a bit defensive.</p>
<p>@alix2012. I agree with you for once!
I don not plan on going to grad school. I do not want to be 30 by the time I enter my field. That’s why I don’t want to start at a CC and transfer and then attend Grad school.
Sometimes, we can’t plan for anything. We aren’t promised tomorrow. Everyone acts as though they’ll live to be able to pay off their loans. I was in a car accident today. Luckily everyone was ok, but it makes you think; maybe I should live life to the fullest, and not settle for second best.
If I would have been accepted anywhere I wouldn’t have gotten any aid so it wouldn’t matter if it was NYU I owed $200,000 or Georgetown or Brown.</p>
<p>@CASmom. Agreed. I am fully aware of the amount of debt I would be taking on. My parents are also fully aware. I KNEW NYU would give me nothing and they didn’t. But the other schools didn’t give me anything either. Besides Merit scholarships.</p>
<p>I totally agree… it is not NYU’s fault but the fault of parents and kids who do not research and learn the facts about the obligation of an enormous loan amount, the fact that NYU does not guarantee meeting need or the fact that our entire financial need system is tied to parents income, but does not take into account that many parents cannot/will not pay for their kid’s education.</p>
<p>The cost of my D’s education would have been higher at any equivalently-priced school that does not give merit aid. NYU offered a merit aid package that would not have been available to her at any of the Ivies and many privates.</p>
<p>D will not be graduating with any debt because we have saved some money for college, we have the help of a generous grandparent, and we are able to live off my husband’s salary and put my salary towards her education.</p>
<p>But the bottom line is that if we couldn’t afford it, we would have told D, “No!” And we would not have co-signed the loans.</p>
<p>My sister went to NYU for dental school. I also checked out NYU in high school when I was deciding where to apply to. </p>
<p>I guess my question is that if you do not plan on going to grad school, then why is it that a Bachelors degree at NYU should cost $180,000 more for a comparable degree at a flagship state school? Even if you went to Harvard, your earnings potential with a Bachelors degree alone would be severely stunted without a graduate degree. Unless you are Mark Zuckerberg and start Facebook from your Harvard dorm, chances are that you will eventually need to go back to school to get that MBA, MS, JD, etc., from an elite school if you really want a bang for your buck and find a good job. </p>
<p>A Bachelors degree doesn’t guarantee you anything beyond the opportunity to apply to white collar jobs anymore. It just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to gamble $200,000 on the ‘chance’ that you will find an above average paying entry level job. Sure, you might be able to snag an analyst job at Goldman Sachs that someone who didn’t go to NYU could not have gotten, but that is a big, expensive “if” for the chance at a < $63,000/year job in the most expensive city in America.</p>
<p>It ***** me off that there is a idiot out their this dumb. Not only did he screw his life over, he’s gonna make it harder for low income students, like myself, to get a loans without out their parents having amazing credit scores, which my parents dont! Seriously, If he was making straight A’s at NYU then he would be in this situation and if he was not making amazing grades then HE WAS WASTING HIS MONEY and the fact that his **** up made national news hurts those he are responible with their money.</p>
<p>@aj - Dude, you got merit scholarships at other colleges and you’re taking out $200k in loans for an NYU degree?! Damn I hope you’re graduating from Stern with a Finance degree :)</p>
<p>@jassy - Let’s be realistic: maybe 5% of Americans have a grad degree, fewer than 1% from elite schools. There are very few jobs for which a grad degree is necessary. Sitting in school and reading a book isn’t preparation for most real-world jobs. Most entry-level white collar jobs could be done without BA’s, to be honest. There are certain fields where getting a Grad degree is absolutely necessary, but most people are not going into those fields. </p>
<p>I agree with you that an NYU degree isn’t worth $180k more than the State flagship. But not everyone is paying that much to go here. Some of us attend on merit and need-based scholarships and such. </p>
<p>Also, after attending NYU for 2 years I notice most students here are from well-to-do families. For many of them, the $200k price tag isn’t a big deal because their parents can pay it either out of pocket or from savings - so they can justify the extra cost. Why should they go to State U when they can afford NYU and want to?</p>
<p>I’m simply saying that there is a very minimal difference between someone holding a bachelors degree from NYU and someone holding one from a decent state school, but potentially a very big difference between someone holding your typical bachelors degree and someone with a highly specialized graduate degree. That’s all. If the difference in potential earnings among BA/BS holders is so small, then why spend such an absurd amount of money to go to NYU over another school if it is so much more financially burdensome to do so? </p>
<p>I would also argue that the only undergrads who can actually differentiate themselves from all others with ‘prestige’ alone are those at the very very top, i.e. those at Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Stanford, MIT, and Caltech. At a top 5 school or maybe 10 school, yes you could major in something like History and have a very good change at scoring at a top consulting or IB job. Majoring in History at NYU or another mid-tier private or public school will not give you any advantage over anyone else in getting one of those jobs. </p>
<p>Obviously if your family is wealthy, none of these arguments really mean all that much to you. But this whole thread isn’t about the rich kids, it is about the low to middle income families who cannot comfortably afford to take on so much debt even with some financial aid. So the question is if NYU is a school for the rich or is it a school that can accommodate qualified students of all socioeconomic backgrounds? </p>
<p>When a school seems to prioritize massive expansion in NYC and Abu Dhabi over working toward securing financial aid to 100% of those who need it, I think you have to question the school’s commitment to the futures of its students and alumni.</p>
<p>Realistically, NYU can’t compete in FA. With an endowment of 1/30 of a big IVY, the only thing they can compete at the highest level is being Global (and Applied Math, Film, Finance, etc.). Changing the strategy to cover 100% of demonstrated need will only deplete NYU’s endowment and not advance the needs of the University. Keep in mind that those IVYs are receiving about 4% interest of their endowment (1/25) to fund those and other activities. How many centuries took them to do that? NYU has another century to do that.</p>
<p>nalakc92: "I think you should note that she majored in Religion and women studies from CAS. She basically took out a $100k loan to become a nun (ROFL). I think if she had graduated from Stern or Tisch, it would have been a little bit different. "</p>
<p>Not to be a jerk here and bag on other schools at NYU, but Tisch? Really? Tisch is very, very prestigious, but prestige doesn’t always equate to a high paying salary because your salary is more relative to the industry you’re working with. So just because you go to the best musical theater program in the country doesn’t mean you’ll be rich one day considering broadway actors/actresses make a financially modest living. (I’m not hating on Cap21. I have lovely, talented friends in the program but I’ve heard some admit that there’s a reasonable chance that they won’t be striking gold in the future.)</p>
<p>P.S. I believe Nursing and Computer Science were the majors from NYU that have on average the highest starting salaries. Neither of these majors are offered at Stern or Tisch :)</p>
<p>As far as blaming NYU goes, I think it’s naive to not view colleges as a business, because they absolutely are in this country. Moreover, at my accepted students day last spring, JSex gave a speech to CAS acceptees and warned many, many times that NYU is not right for everyone for a number of reasons. For a college president to state this so boldly on a weekend where they’re trying to persuade students to attend their school says a lot to me atleast.</p>
<p>Oh and someone also said that Sexton’s expansion of the school is making the school worse: Being that it won’t be done until 2031, years after anyone posting here has entered the full-time job market and at which point experience is MUCH more important than what college you attended, I don’t think you should be that freaked out about how the expansion will affect you in this sense. IMO, and I’m probably biased because both of my parents attended NYU when it was a commuter school in Washington Heights, but I think the expansion will be good for NYU. But that’s just my speculation.</p>
<p>Alright you win for the Tisch arguement - honestly I don’t know much about it besides that it is somewhat “prestigious” but nevertheless I think I’m gonna agree with you on that one.</p>
<p>However your:</p>
<p>Vonegutted: P.S. I believe Nursing and Computer Science were the majors from NYU that have on average the highest starting salaries. Neither of these majors are offered at Stern or Tisch.</p>
<p>In jobs in the financial sector, there are something called “BONUSES”. I am assuming that you got that information out of “Life beyond the square 2009”, in which if you looked more carefully, the Finance major got on average about $63,000 BASE SALARY. Count the sign in bonus ($8k - 10k) and the end of year bonus ($10k - $30k) and you’re left with a very large sum. I admit, the end of year bonus may vary depending on the firm you are in, and the state of the economy but nevertheless, it still mounts up to an easy $70 - 80k for graduates who make it to the financial sector in NYC - which the majority of Stern undergraduates end up. Not to mention, the yearly salary of an analyst goes up per year much much more faster than an engineering degree - hence, explaining why many undergraduate engineers turn to an MBA for grad school. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, $250,000 loan is still WAY too much, but in my opinion, a <$100,000 loan is very doable if one is at NYU Stern (NOT REGULAR NYU), and keeps up a somewhat decent GPA.</p>
<p>God, no wonder people hate on Sternies all the time. They just turn every single discussion about NYU and debt into “STERN IS SO MUCH BETTER THAN THE REST OF NYU BECAUSE OF X, Y AND Z!!!”</p>
<p>No, I’m saying that each school has it’s own merits and value. To say that only certain schools are “worth it” is also saying that the rest ARE NOT, which I find problematic.</p>
<p>It seems pointless to single out the individual value and worth of every school at NYU when, let’s face it, our crappy financial aid is a burden to all students across the board. For every Sternie that gets that job with a high starting salary and BONUSES, there are some who don’t get an offer at all. Those students end up going to law school (I know a few). There are business students across the nation all coming out into the worst job market ever. I’m just trying to say that our financial aid is a burden to ALL students of NYU and to bog down the conversation with arguments about the worthiness of each division at NYU is pointless.</p>
<p>Does anyone have the correct link to the original CNN story referenced? The link from the OP does not lead to a video about NYU or college debt? I have searched CNN and can’t find it. Maybe NYU admins paid CNN to remove it ;-)</p>