Most parents on this forum are against spending any money on K-12 schools and undergrad if you can find something public or free/easily affordable. What’s your take on grad school? Same policy?
It’s a completely different animal and the prospects of doing graduate school for free depend on the field. I am not sure a general rule makes sense here.
Yeah but it seems unpopular here to spend any money on education if there is another option. You can spend on all other things in life but no need to spend on education. From what I’ve learned here, is to always go with free or cheapest option because difference in quality or prestige isn’t really worth it for income.
I don’t think there are many people on this site that advocate not spending money on education. What people do advocate is not spending yourself into oblivion on education. Student debt is a massive problem right now, and any effort to try to become educated without tying such an anchor to yourself and your future is a pretty solid game plan.
Depends on the grad school & program.
Harvard or Stanford or Wharton Business schools are probably worth debt. Yale Law school can be worth it (but with a YLS acceptance, that same student would likely receive a near full ride to a lower T14).
Paying sticker for English Studies at Podunk U is probably not worth it (from an economic standpoint).
Agree with the others: don’t enroll in a PhD program that is not fully funded. OTOH, some top Master’s programs maybe worth assuming some debt if that is to be one’s terminal degree…
K-12 is very different from undergrad, and undergrad is very different from graduate school.
At the undergrad level, generally speaking, prestige doesn’t matter so very much (I mean, it kind of does, but mostly because prestige is conflated with wealth and socioeconomic status markers). Starting salaries for fresh grads are also relatively low, so it doesn’t make sense to take on a ton of debt that will be difficult to repay for some extra prestige.
Graduate school is an entirely different animal. There are so many different factors - you could be getting an MBA from a top school where the average starting salary is $160K, and in that case it may make sense to borrow the $100-120K it’ll cost for the program because you can repay it relatively easily and by the time you’ve paid it off, your salary also will have risen a lot. Or you could want an MSW to go into a field where you’re lucky if you crack $50K, in which case it doesn’t make any sense at all to borrow $100K since it’ll shackle you to debt your whole life.
Also, in some fields prestige does matter (like law or business or academia) and in others, it doesn’t (like social work, medicine, dentistry, and potentially education depending). So paying more for Harvard Med when you got into Medical College of Georgia or whatever maybe doesn’t make sense. But paying more for Harvard Law over Georgia State Law probably does.
@bluebayou That is not true. Most of the T14 don’t even offer full rides. Any scholarships to top law schools are going to be crazy competitive. I hear that same nonsense about undergrad. And it’s not true there either, as full rides are few and far between and crazy competitive at that level as well.
As you maybe aware, historically, law schools were cash cows for the Uni. But with the '08/'09 recession and the plummeting of applications, law schools cranked up their merit aid to attract top scoring students.
yes, full rides are rare. But attending a T13 at a huge discount is much much better than paying sticker for CCN (again, unless the family is wealthy).
But don’t just take my word for it and look up the law school reports (ABA 509) on how much money and what % they give out to the class. For example, Northwestern Law (one of the more generous) gave merit money to 83% of its incoming class. Moreover, nearly 40% received more than a half tuition discount. Nine students with a full tuition +… (That’s all tax-free money!)
For Duke, the numbers are 87% received some cash, with ~20% receiving more than half tuition. 2% received full tuition from Duke. Michigan Law has similar %'s of merit aid to Duke.
To me, one-fifth of the class at a significant tax-free discount is not “crazy competitive.”. More importantly, someone with Harvard Law numbers will easily receive one of the top scholarships offered by a ‘lesser’ T13. And someone with Yale Law numbers will be competitive for the full rides at CCN. For example, Columbia offers 55 full tuition scholarships (Hamilton), primarily to steal applicants from HYS. Chicago offers 18 ‘Ruby’ scholarships for the same reason. Yes, scholarships at CCN are crazy competitive, but the lower T13 are much more generous… Just requires a high GPA and/or LSAT score. (For HYS one needs both.)
Other than ABA 509 reports, Law School Numbers is a great source of merit money.
But note, apps to law schools have been increasing in the last couple of years, so who knows how much longer the merit money spigot will be open…
@bluebayou Your aren’t calculating the odds and are over-inflating any one student’s chances of winning a full tuition scholarship. I quickly did the math for Columbia and came up with 1.5% chance of getting the full tuition per class. The odds are going to be slightly better for the top students, but with a narrow band stats wise, the odds are “crazy competitive.”
But back to the OP’s question, for a student interested in law school with the profile to get into Yale, Harvard, or Stanford and interested in either Big Law, teaching, or gov’t/public interest, you go. You don’t take the scholarship at a lower ranked school. The Big Law lifestyle is awful, and if it’s not for you, you do your time for 2-3 years, pay off the loans and get out. Teaching and gov’t/public interest will also easily pay for themselves through salary or generous debt forgiveness programs.
The same is true for the top MBA programs. You take the loans.
If my D ends up going either route, she’ll go to a top ranked program. JD and MBA pedigree matters. Undergrad, not so much. She took the money for undergrad and is having a great experience with amazing opportunities. She would work for a few years before attending grad school and will have enough between her savings from work and her graduation present to make a significant dent in the cost of either degree.
Huh?
I clearly said that the full rides at CCN (Columbia, Chicago, NYU) are crazy competitive. (sorry if the abbreviation was not clear.)
But even a half-tuition discount, of which there are plenty, is still a whole lot less debt to be saddled with. (The easiest tax free money a young 'en will ever make.)
And that makes absolutely no economic sense. Attend a lower T13 for little debt and leave/do whatever you want.
Today, yes. But don’t plan on that largesse for future years, particularly the federal loan forgiveness program. Congress can easily change the law (and likely will).
The only Big Law firms that don’t recruit onsite at the lower T13 are Wachtell & Cravath. Top students from say Duke Law can still get to those firms, but its more difficult. Other than those two, other Big Law firms are wide open, particularly in NYC.
Teaching? Agreed, HYS is the way to go. But then legal teaching jobs fall under the Unicorn categories, and no one should plan for them.
Govt/Public interest? Not necessarily. NYU, for example, has an excellent PI program with lotsa contacts. (While NYU does have 130 full rides, they are crazy competitive; otherwise, NYU is not that generous. Still a full tuition at NYU for someone desiring PI easily beats sticker at HLS, IMO.)
And don’t forget top clerkships: HYS+Chicago.
@Riversider : Your question is too broad. Professional schools–such as law schools & MBA–each deserve separate discussions as do graduate programs in the humanities or sciences.
Nevertheless, there are solid reasons for attending non-top 14 law schools & non-M-7 or non-top 10 MBA programs on scholarship depending upon one’s career plans, background & targeted geographical area for jobs.
There are no blanket rules or patterns here on CC. As Bonehead wrote, most people don’t advice serious debt for UG.
We paid full,price for UG, and graduate school is funded. Had medicine, dental, or law school been the objective, may have made different decisions.