<p>My daughter has a very bright friend who is a sophomore at Yale. He went in undecided and now wants to be a HS English teacher. Yale does not have a teaching certificate program so he will major in English and take whatever education studies classes they have.</p>
<p>If you are wealthy and can afford for your child to get an elite private school education then no harm done. If either of you need to take loans, it is better to be informed. 50% of teachers quit in the first 5 years. Are you and D educated as to why? It is no small deal to have to pay back student loans when your paycheck barely covers your expenses. It is unfortunate that so many go into this field with expectations that don’t line up with reality.</p>
<p>I don’t know how much she borrowed, but I assume it is around $100k+. She has roommates. She doesn’t have much, but she has an education and a career. And debt. I’ve never asked my in-laws how much they helped. </p>
<p>We’ve always been clear to our kids as to the amount we will pay. I don’t think her parents ever had that conversation.</p>
<p>If you teach in New York then you also have to earn a Masters degree within 5 years to be permanently certified. More loans :(</p>
<p>There are also some loan forgiveness programs for educators.
D received merit awards for grad school.</p>
<p>I think how each spends his/her money is an individual decision - you just have to weigh out the value for yourself. For US, it would be silly and ridiculous to spend/borrow to go to an expensive place for a teaching degree or similar. </p>
<p>In fact, D2 went through this very thing, and she agreed. Regional state school. She LOVES it, and she’ll be a fine candidate for public school choral directing, which is exactly what she wants.</p>
<p>If money’s no object, I see no reason why not pay for, say, a Princeton education + grad school for a kid who’s aiming to end up an elementary school teacher with a starting salary of $29K/year. If child doesn’t like teaching, that Princeton education can likely take her/him elsewhere. </p>
<p>OTOH, paying nearly a quarter million dollars for a BA which will lead to a career with a maximum earning potential of, say, $70K per year does sound a bit bizarre.</p>
<p>In the current economy, taking out big loans for UG education when there are other good options doesn’t seem the most prudent idea, especially when the likely jobs will have low salaries that will make repayment tough.</p>
<p>I have just done net price calculators for all my son’s choices. The most expensive private institutions will cost us about $6K-$8K per year - while his public college choice would cost us twice that. Big endowments mean big grants. We are solidly middle class (combined incomes under $100K) and my daughter gets a huge grant from Vanderbilt, and she already has seen her school’s name open some doors. If she’d gone to our local public college, she would have had to take out all loans, and they were not even meeting full EFC. </p>
<p>I think the rule should be, try to get the best education you can for the least amount of debt. And if you have the brains and good luck to get into a prestigious private school, and your debt load will be small, then by all means go into teaching! I know I benefited the most in HS from smart teachers with great educations. And if you change careers (most people do) or decide to advance into administration and beyond, having that name school as an alma mater can and will open doors - from networking contacts with alumni to name recognition.</p>
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<p>As I mentioned, it wasn’t something we considered, but even for those who are determining spending as it relates to future earnings, these figures are not applicable everywhere. My D is at your maximum after only seven years of teaching and she has friends teaching in NYC suburbs and in western NY who are earning the same, or more, than she is. The extent to which the name of their undergrad school affected their ability to get positions, I can’t say. I do know that it had no influence with her being hired here in Toronto.</p>
<p>It is conventional wisdom on CC that you tell your kid well before college how much you are willing and able to pay and stick to it regardless (within reason) of the school in question. That isn’t necessarily wisdom I buy into, as my last post suggests, but I see something deeply disturbing about a culture where it is fine to pay a lot of money, assuming one has it, for a vanity private school or for the privilege of going to a small campus over big state U, but silly to pay a lot of money for a future teacher to get the best education possible. </p>
<p>Again, if the parent can’t or won’t pay for a private in any case, that’s a different story. But I honestly can’t imagine telling a child that you would pay 60K a year if she were going into investment banking, but only 20K if she is going into teaching. Frankly, if my parents had made my future earning potential a part of the conversation, I would have accepted it, but I don’t think our relationship would ever have entirely recovered.</p>
<p>I have 2 friends teaching HS after attending top private LAC/Univs. Neither school offered teaching major/certs. For one, it’s a second career. Both are fabulous teachers and use their wide ranging excellent undergrad education in their current work. I think they are happy to have had the college experience they had. However both attended colleges when it was a whole lot cheaper. </p>
<p>I think it’s a matter of how much it will cost and whether the loan amount is a reasonable amount regardless of anticipated future career. Even if one wants to be a lawyer/doctor, it is still not recommended to come out with a large UG loan due to prof school expenses. As someone who was full pay private in the stone ages and then had >200K loans from med school and as one who is private full pay for a child, I think having loans above 25-50K for UG is a bad idea.</p>
<p>apprenticeprof-boy have you nailed it. I have a niece who is a teacher and a D who plans to be one. My niece was 2nd in her class, my D is one of the top students in hers. People often tilt their heads in confusions at them-“Why are you/do you want to be ‘just a teacher’? You’re so smart you could do ANYTHING.”</p>
<p>My daughter’s answer to that is exactly how I feel-wouldn’t you WANT a smart, dedicated person teaching the future generations to become the best they can be? Would you rather have someone teaching because that is the only job they could get? How odd.</p>
<p>My niece did go to an expensive LAC but paid almost nothing because of merit money. Teacher grants paid for both Master’s. Sure, she could be making more money in ibanking or engineering, but she LOVES teaching and her students love her. Parents write letters to the local paper about her. Yes, she has to save up for things like a new car and can’t order out every day or hire help, but she is careful with her money and still manages to enjoy her life. She is one of the happiest people I know.</p>
<p>And that’s as it should be. People should be happy with their lives. If working as an ibanker will make them happy, cool, but not everyone does, thank god.</p>
<p>Our income would mean most of the “tippy top” schools would cover D’s expenses, if she got in. And we’ll be realistic about what we can afford. But it won’t be based on future earnings. My ex’s dad did exactly that when it came to college, and their relationship never DID recover.</p>
<p>The world of education law, policy, advocacy, ed reform, etc. is populated by former teachers. It is very narrow to think that a 17 year old interested in teaching only needs to get an education for the sake of fulfilling some licensing requirements to teach K-12, vs. getting the best education possible for this student’s entire life.</p>
<p>I’m not suggesting “the best education possible” always means the most expensive option. But there are many classroom teachers who decide they more interested in creating systemic change and advances in education than just reaching 25 kids per year. Those jobs- whether at prestigious foundations and think tanks, lobbying organizations, DOE at either the federal or state level, etc. are frequently populated by professionals who got top notch liberal arts educations… then got certified to teach… and then went on to the next chapter of their career.</p>
<p>My own corporation has hired dozens of former teachers in a variety of roles. You really can’t look at a 17 year old and decide it’s not “worth it” to get that kid the best education his or her abilities allow and that is affordable. A former college classmate of mine taught for a few years and is now a corporate leader for one of the largest textbook companies in the world. Greatly out-earns every K-12 teacher in the US by many multiples… but would never have gotten hired without classroom teaching experience.</p>
<p>And how many adults do you know who are doing the job they thought they’d be doing at 17?</p>
<p>Don’t take on excessive debt. Don’t encourage your kid to apply to schools which are unaffordable. But teaching is an elastic career right now-- look at the hundreds of statisticians working to develop performance metrics, look at the people who work in marketing for software companies helping school systems improve their technology footprint, look at the people who work in corporate training/learning and development who have a classroom teaching background… it’s just too broad a field to box your kid into 'I’m going to teach 5th grade social studies in Tulsa Oklahoma for the rest of my life".</p>
<p>Blossom, I’m hoping your comment wasn’t directed at mine. I never said a student should go to college SOLELY where they can get teacher certification requirements. But if they really intend to become public school teachers, they will need to fulfill those requirements…at some point. It IS possible to get a very good education AND go to a place where fulfilling the requirements for teacher certification are both in place.</p>
<p>In my state, ALL teachers (prek-12) are required to actually have a content area major…so the student should go someplace where their areas of content interest have strong programs. The teacher certification requirements are layered on top of those.</p>
<p>There are those folks who do get their bachelors degrees in a specific course of study, and then pursue the teaching requirements either in a 5th year or masters program.</p>
<p>Thumper, comment not directed at you or anyone else… but I know IRL I often hear people being somewhat dismissive of their kid’s education since “she only wants to be a school teacher” or “he’s talking about becoming a chemistry teacher and coaching debate”.</p>
<p>Yes, there are many ways to go about getting certified to teach, and some are quicker than others, and some are cheaper than others. But for some adults, classroom teaching was a springboard to another path within the educational field, and I think it makes sense to at least consider that your kid might not feel the same way about teaching by age 35 than he or she does at age 17. Just consider.</p>
<p>And I applaud any state which requires a content area major. A cousin of mine recently returned to a middle school classroom after many years in another career and was surprised (appalled) by the new teachers who are heavy on pedagogy and classroom management, but are weak on their subject matter. Tough teaching science when you are one chapter ahead of the kids…</p>
<p>The thing to bear in mind is that elite or not, if you haven’t made the contacts within a school district it may simply not be possible to gain employment as a teacher. Many localities have excellent, name, colleges in the area which take all the student teaching positions and act as the hiring pipeline, so the problem can then be finding a job in the college area and being able to pay living expenses in that area when making starting salary,</p>
<p>There are also a very high number of folks who enter education, do it for five years or less, and then pursue masters degrees in other fields. So…true…what you think you might want to do at age 17 can change. There is huge attrition in the field of education these days. I don’t remember the exact statistic, but I believe it is greater than 75% of those entering education will still be in the field in any capacity ten years later.</p>
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<p>That’s very true of the college classmates/friends who went into teaching. Unfortunately, the ones who were topflight undergrads academically and were going into teaching for the most altruistic reasons seemed to be the ones most likely to burn out within 5 years due to cumulative negative effects of lack of admin/older teacher support, low pay, dealing with negligent or “not my angel” type parents of extremely disruptive/violent students, aggravations of managing a classroom of K-12 students*, and being blamed for effects of problems that IMO…are mainly caused by negligent/“not my angel” type parents and to some extent…lack of societal support for parents struggling at the margins. </p>
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<li>A reason why most HS classmates and I won’t consider doing K-12 teaching. There’s a world of difference between teaching ostensible young adults in a college classroom…including community college and public K-12. Teachers in the latter have a much harder time ordering a student to leave the class if they’re being disruptive to the class/other students or acting up whereas the chair of the community college department I was subbing in said all I needed to do was give the request to leave and if needed, summon campus security to escort the disruptive/acting up student out of the class.<br></li>
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<p>A large part of that is due to the fact that with the exception of a minority of academically topflight undergrads who enter K-12 teaching for idealistic/altruistic reasons, most enter K-12 teaching tend to be those who graduated in the bottom half of their undergrad classes and tend to struggle with teaching some concepts and sometimes…have a serious chip on their shoulder against above-average academic achievers or worse, the G & T students. </p>
<p>Some of the teacher acquaintances I know fit the latter profile whether it’s an upper middle-class ORM college dormmate admitted with a 50% scholarship to a top 3 M.Ed program with a below 3.0 GPA and sub-par GRE scores compared with other divisions on the same Ivy campus or an ex-GF of a friend who was an elementary Ed major and struggles with performing basic arithmetic and writing/speaking in coherent sentences*.</p>
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<li>Something closer to textspeak and speech patterns common among local high school dropouts in my college town area who weren’t even able to get a GED. And yes, she was using them in her college papers as illustrated when she had me look over those essays to figure out why she kept getting Cs and lower on them. :(</li>
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<p>Send your kid to the school that you can afford and that offers the best fit.</p>
<p>A private school isn’t always more expensive than a public despite the differences in sticker price.</p>
<p>A private school isn’t always the better education or best education for your child. </p>
<p>Ultimately, there can be no absolute, black and white answer. Those that offer simple solutions are often possess only a simple understanding of the issues.</p>
<p>Two kids go to college. One goes to an elite school the other to a less known, less expensive school. Both graduate and go into teaching making the same amount. The answer to who got more bang for the education bucks is the kid who paid and/or owes less money.</p>
<p>But which kid is that? </p>
<p>Also, what if both kids decide after a few years of teaching to strive for principal and superintendent jobs? Who has the edge? The student with the elite degree pursues a masters degree from another elite institution and the one from the lesser known school gets a masters degree from another lesser known school. And so it goes…the cumulative effect of the decision to attend an elite school has more potential to open other doors which benefits the individual navigating an ever changing marketplace for education. Both kids have to work hard to succeed but a day will come when hard work alone isn’t enough. A little juice is needed to get over a hurdle. One will have the juice, the other MAY have the juice. Maybe not.</p>