<p>I have a friend who was accepted to Harvard last year but with very little aid. She is a brilliant student (near perfect SATs , National Merit finalist, etc.) and she got a full ride to the University of Vermont. She really wants to be a teacher for young kids, ideally, 1st grade. She chose to go to UVM for free instead of graduating with close to $200k in loans. People keep telling her that she shouldn't have turned down Harvard so she is having second thoughts. Your opinions? Thanks</p>
<p>If she prefers another place over Harvard, it’s fine. As long as she’s happy, there is no problem with it.</p>
<p>No, it’s not stupid. In my opinion, it’s a financially prudent move. If she still wants to go to Harvard later for graduate school, she should enroll in Harvard’s Graduate School of Education. It’s not hard to get in - apparently the acceptance rate there is over 70%.</p>
<p>No, she made a very wise and bold move based on the circumstances. Now, if Harvard was offering her a free ride as well, then it may be a different story…</p>
<p>No she didn’t make a mistake at all. The mistake would have bee coming out of undergrad with $200k in debt and trying to pay that off at over $2,300 a month every month for 10 years on an elementary school teacher income. </p>
<p>She made a very wise move</p>
<p>Nowhere’s worth 200K in loans. But Harvard has perhaps the most generous aid in the country, especially for middle-income students. To have gotten so little aid, her family must have considerable resources, so the need to take out 200K in loans sounds as if the family had other priorities than Harvard.</p>
<p>Why does she need to go to Harvard to become a 1st grade teacher and be in debt?</p>
<p>This has a little of an air of urban legend about it, at least the $200K debt part vs. full ride part. But, assuming it’s true, the reactions here make me a little sad. Not that they are wrong, just unfortunate.</p>
<p>Growing up, I benefited a lot from having teachers – not in first grade, but in middle school and high school – who had gone to colleges like Harvard and Yale. Not that they were the only good teachers I had, or that they were all head and shoulders above every other teacher, but they were very good, and none of them were duds, and they were disproportionately represented in the 6-7 teachers who made most of a difference to my education. One SHOULD be able to go to Harvard and teach elementary school. There’s nothing about Harvard or elementary school that makes that pairing inappropriate. It’s too bad for our society if we price high-quality college education at a level that prevents graduates from doing meaningful, important work.</p>
<p>I don’t mean any disrespect to UVT, either. What if she HADN’T gotten a full ride there? Would she have gone to Harvard then, and become a lawyer rather than a teacher? Would she have kept trading down until she found a college cheap enough to let her pursue her interests?</p>
<p>My Ss were taught by some Ivy League graduates, including some with Ph.D.s. One of my S’s friends went to Harvard (on financial aid), got her UTEP and went back to teach at her former school.</p>
<p>About 95% of the teachers at my moderately sized high school (~1800 students) came from Illinois State University or the University of Illinois. The resultant provincialism is frustrating.</p>
<p>she blew it.</p>
<p>the education and experience at harvard is way better than uvm. she could have figured out the money piece.</p>
<p>^ Well… it can’t be helped. Most of my teachers were from the local Cal States and a few from the UC schools.</p>
<p>
I don’t think anyone is saying there would be anything wrong with her going to Harvard to be an elementary teacher, if it is financially viable. I certainly wasn’t. I absolutely do think going $200k into debt by going to Harvard to be an elementary school teacher would be a horrendous mistake. $2000+ a month in loan payments for a teacher would be a huge burden.</p>
<p>she blew it.</p>
<p>harvard would have opened her mind to possiblities and provided her all kinds of post grad opportunity. way more than uvm.</p>
<p>As a Vermonter, I cannot fathom why someone would make that decision.</p>
<p>Harvard is need-blind, isn’t it?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Completely agree. If she qualified for so little aid she would have been rich enough to afford it. Harvard doesn’t have any financial aid that is merit based. It is completely need-based.</p>
<p>“. I absolutely do think going $200k into debt by going to Harvard to be an elementary school teacher would be a horrendous mistake. $2000+ a month in loan payments for a teacher would be a huge burden.”</p>
<p>Families making as much as $160 k a year can get need-based aid from Harvard. If the story posted is true, sounds like the OP’s parents had money, but also had other priorities than sending their D to the best school that they could.</p>
<p>My freshman Harvard roommate planned to be an elementary school teacher. By the end of freshman year, she had decided to major in biology and to be premed. She ended up graduating from Columbia Medical School and now is an administrator at a well respected medical school. </p>
<p>If, though, she had gone to the equivalent of U VT, she may have continued on her path of being an elementary school teacher. At schools like U Vt., there are many students who plan to be school teachers, but few who plan to pursue careers like law and medicine. At Harvard, the reverse is true.</p>
<p>One other thing to consider: Most college students change majors at least twice. If the OP’s friend’s parents didn’t send their D to Harvard because they figured she’d “only” become a school teacher, they may have made a bad decision because she may decide to enter a completely different field than she now is considering.</p>
<p>^^my point exactly!</p>
<p>this girl made a big mistake. we live in a world where there are huge quality differences, colleges have significant differences, and there is such a thing as better. And Harvard is way better than UVM.</p>
<p>This girl didn’t make a big mistake. She understood that her parents weren’t going to pay for her undergrad education, understood that she didn’t want to be two hundred thousand dollars in debt in a low-paying career field, and decided to attend the option that would allow her to live more comfortably immediately after college. I’m in a similar situation to hers (parents who are high-income enough to qualify for little financial aid, but who don’t want to spend 200k on a child’s education) and I understand her choice. There’s nothing wrong with attending a “lesser” school so one doesn’t have to make huge payments every year for the next ten years.</p>
<p>Harvard isn’t way better than UVM for everyone. Yes, it offers wonderful and one-of-the-kind opportunities to its students, but I think this girl made a wise decision considering her family’s apparent desire for her to finance her own education. Even if she does change her major and ultimately enter a higher-paying career field, she will have the luxury of graduating with zero debt, which is a wonderful thing.</p>
<p>Remember, the girl herself was not rich enough to afford Harvard. Her parents had a high enough income to afford it if they chose, but apparently they didn’t choose to afford it (it might have even given them economic hardship to pay 200k, like it will for my parents). I wish my parents would choose to afford 100% of my education, but unfortunately (but understandably) they don’t, and we as children have very little say over how much our parents spend on our college.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Really? Do they teach you how to abbreviate state names there, too?</p>