How expensive is Caltech?

I read on the Caltech website that the average cost for undergrad is 45,000 per year. This is ridiculously high, at least for my family, so I would assume that most students at Caltech either come from rich families or they take out massive loans.

I was admitted to Cambridge where the cost is in the ballpark of 45,000 per year and I’m trying to decide whether it’s sensible to pay thst much by comparing to Caltech. Given that the main mission is to train scientists, I don’t think Caltech is stupid enough to burden it’s students with massive loans that would be difficult to pay off with a researcher’s salary (which is typically low).

So how do the Caltech students who plan on becoming researchers plan on paying for the cost of attendance.

$45,000 is just tuition, there is also room and board:
http://finaid.caltech.edu/Costs

And here is the information on grants
http://finaid.caltech.edu/TypesofAid/grants

Not sure if internationals are eligible though.

My son attends Cal tech and we pay full fees, close to $70k (Pasadena is expensive).
We started saving for his and his sisters’ educational expenses when they were babies by using a 529 account. No, we are not rich, and we both work full time to make ends meet.

We drive used cars, make our own house repairs, don’t go to movies or many outings. We never take vacations. It’s called sacrificing a little for our kids. No, we are not rich, but we are not eligible for financial aid because we are middle income.

He was a national merit winner and gets $2500 per year. He also works and contributes that money. No one said going to college is supposed to be cheap.

Does your child plan on becoming a researcher (for which the pay is generally low)? If so how do you plan to reimburse the loan? Does your child plan on pursuing a PhD? If so, did you take into account that the interest on the loan will grow during the PhD studies, and your child won’t be able to start working a full time job until after the PhD is over? These are all concerns for my family.

Also, is the loan in the parents name or the child’s name, because I wasn’t able to take out a loan under my name (I have no credit).

As for your remark that college is not supposed to be cheap, do you realize that only in America is tuition not free or close to free? I was accepted to some schools in France and I would graduate with literally 0 debt (living expenses are also payed for). The only problem is that I want to study in English.

We also pay full fees. Kid gets $3000 per year scholarship.We started saving since he was very young.

CalTech gives very good need based aid to US citizens who are low income. Regarding loans, the max amount a US student is expected to take out is a total of $27,000 in federal loans.

If you want to study in English and don’t want to pay US tuition, study in the UK or Australia. Some countries have a lot of classes taught in English, too (UHelsinki, for example).

Different countries have different approaches and policies. In Europe, education may not be as expensive as the US, but the taxes are much higher and that is how the education is being subsidized. Students at Caltech get the opportunity to intern at several companies in Silicon Valley and at JPL etc. This is in addition to the top class education they receive. We felt the experience for our kid was worth the money we were paying.

The fact that you accept to pay astronomical amounts for a so called world class education which is in par with the free education a french person would get at Ecole Normale Superieure (the Caltech of France) is rather interesting, but putting that aside…

Can I talk to someone here who plans on doing a PhD in math or physics after Caltech and pursuing a career in research? My worry is threefold: (1) researchers in physics who work in academia tend to not make a lot (2) interest grows significsntly during the PhD period (student plus loan 6.4% rate) (3) going to a world class university like Cambridge or Caltech generally has a great return on investment if you plan on going into a high paying profession where the prestige of your bachelor’s degree matters (engineering, medicine, law, etc), but physics resrarch is a low paying profession where prestige of undergrad matters very little (only your skills are relevant).

I was hoping that asking in the Caltech forum would answer my question about how aspiring scientists intend to pay off their massive college loans. And I read that around 35% of Caltech students go on to pursue PhD studies, so I csnt be the only one in my situation.

@auntbea are you still there?

I appreciate your advice.

  1. We are not French, and don't have that option. Good for the French!
  2. I am very unfamiliar with that school, but I do know that there are hundreds of thousands of international students beating down the door to get into Caltech, and as such are rejected because they only pick 200 of the best students per year, worldwide.
  3. ***You have made a good argument for yourself to go to the Ecole Normale and are free to go to that school; it sounds like it's the best choice for you. * ** Problem solved. If you are complaining about the high cost of Caltech, you don't have to go. No one is forcing you to go there and you will be completely useless at a school where you are complaining about the cost. If you select it, then you have to pay for the **amazing research facilities **, top of the line professors, and incredible state-of-the-art equipment. That's what I pay for every time I get that Bursar's bill.

As @intparent has indicated, there are other universities that provide coursework in English and are a lot less (as noted by @TomSrOfBoston). The problem, that I see often, is that some international students think that the US should provide free educations to noncitizens, and, that somehow the US “owes them” because they then expect to be immigrated to live and work in the US. (Where are those monies supposed to come from?). Immigration rules are strict: US employers have to find US candidates to fill all positions first.

  1. Because we are familiar with public and private American colleges, our son does not have any loans to pay back because we didn't allow him to take out loans that he couldn't repay within the following summer. (Assume $4k) A 529 account is something that Americans open, when their children are infants, to help fund future educational costs. We, as parents know the costs are high, but as parents we planned and have funded our kids' futures. It's something we expected to incur. We don't owe any money because we budget/budgeted for their costs.

I agree with @florianCollege, the experience alone has already taught him some invaluable opportunities. He already has employers giving him contact information for internships. Their onsite interviews from the top corporations are plastered all over the student services building. Every time someone hears that our son is at Caltech they immediately say, “Wow!”, followed by “Where does he want to work?” “I have a colleague at _________, have him contact me in JR year”.

Go to Your Ecole Normale. You won’t have to take out any loans and will be debt free. It sounds like a great opportunity if it is the French Caltech. It sounds like you’ll be proud to attend and will be a LOT happier there.

You can come to the US for a PhD program after undergrad if you do well in your studies and gave good GRE and TOEFL scores. No one here would recommend that students take out large amounts of debt for college. Go where you can afford to go. One of my kids is a physics major at a highly ranked US tech school and hopes to go on to grad school, but she will not come out of college with significant debt.

@auntbea : once again, I understand why top American colleges are a good increment for people who want to work in industry like, presumably, your son. I only care about research in mathematics/physics and how someone who intends to pursue a PhD can pay off the cost of Cambridge (for example). Can someone please comment on this specifically.

Also, as someone interested primarly in math/physics, I never understood why undergraduate students cared about research opportunities in college. Students do not have enough experience in undergrad to produce nontrivial research in math or physics. Presumably one should learn the fundamentals first and then after mastery begin research. This is how it works at Cambridge at least - there is no undergrad research.

Yu are incorrect, In Canada tuition for Canadians is $4000-$12,000/year, for internationals it is $18,000 to $40,000/year with minimal financial aid for internationals. And many Canadians flock to top US universities.

Also according to the THES rankings, Caltech is number 1 in the world while Ecole Normale Superieure is ranked 54th. So the Caltech of France is not Caltech. You get what you pay for.

I thought we were talking about Caltech?

I don’t know how you will fund your Cambridge education. Savings? Maybe someone else, on this forum, has experience with Cambridge funding.

We funded our children, at their universities, by using a combination of their savings in their 529 accounts, scholarships, short-term loans, and by being frugal with our expenses. Lots of pre-planing.

Undergrad research?

Every college in the US offers some “taste-bites” in minimal research to upper division students (if the student chooses to partake). Our daughter did that at her UC. Our son currently doesn’t have time in his Caltech schedule for that. Such research IS typically conducted at post-graduate levels. Where are you getting your misinformation?

My kid is first author on a research presentation as an undergrad this year. She goes to a school that has no grad students – the profs have a vested interest in getting their students up to speed to help in their labs. I agree that freshman & sophomores are limited in their contributions, but they can start to learn lab machinery and techniques. Research experience is very helpful in admission to graduate programs, too.

Regarding paying off undergraduate school, you should go to an undergrad school you can afford. No one has a foolproof answer for how to attend a school outside your price range and pay off big loans.

@TomSrOfBoston : don’t be fooled by World Rankings which is complete BS. Ecole Normale Superieure is a school with only 250 students and yet it has produced 11 Fields medals (the highest of any institution in the world, the next highest is University Paris ) and 8 Nobel prizes. It has an acceptance rate of 1% based on a rigorous entrance exam in math/physics which not even 25% of Caltech students would be able to pass. World Rankings factors other things such as research facilities, endowment, research output, etc and the fact is ENS is a school which produces the premier scientists and mathematician of France who go on to do research at other places - it is not itself a major research institution.

And Moscow State Univeristy, which produces all the Russian math geniuses (many IMO medalists) ranks something like #70. And it’s also free. Are you really gonna tell me Caltech is better than Moscow State University?

You Americans are pretentious, you rely on marketing to promote your BS universities and then use the prestige factor to screw over students and charge them ridiculous amounts of money. And you are so gullible that you accept all this…

So why are you even bothering to consider Caltech is you have all these other better options? Oh, you want to study in English.

I guess we gullible people don’t understand why any internationals would want to go to our schools if our schools are so screwed up? Save yourself some money and dont apply to any US schools. They will just screw you over and charge ridiculous amounts of money. I just don’t understand why you are so angry about something you can control.
You have a perfectly good option in your country as well as Russia, do yourself a favor and USE it. Problem is solved!!
Again, no one is begging you to attend our pretentious schools.

What I see from your posts: You are discovering that you don’t have the budget to afford to attend a" pretentious and overrated, BS" American university and you want to come to the US, but are angry that you can’t attend because no one is paying for you to go. I get that. France sounds like a winner to me. Why don’t you want to go to your Ecole?

@TomSrOfBoston, if we comed from a country that didn’t have over 300 million residents, we might be able to fund more students.

@“aunt bea” : let me enlighten you a bit

Just so you know I’m American. Ideally I’d like to be able to study in my own country, or at least in my own language. And I don’t speak Russian.

Why do internationals flock to the US schools? Because the US is a master of marketing, and English is spoken all over the world. Also because it makes sense to study in a top American university if you want to make money - as they say the business of America is business.

Unfrotunatley both Cambridge and all my Americans options are too expensive (at least $50,000) and my only other option is to study in France. I can’t blame Cambridge for not making my studies affordable because I’m not british, but I didn’t expect to be betrayed by my own country. So to avoid the absurdity of these costs I would be forced to make a 5 year commitment in a country where I don’t speak the language fluently, and pass an extremely difficult entrance exam which most Caltech students would fail miserably.

Do you see why I’m angry now? Do you see why I’m asking for information on how Americans who wish to pursue a PhD and enter research pay for their studies?

My question has yet to be answered.

You state that you were admitted to Cambridge. Did you apply to Caltech? Were you admitted? If your parents are low income you should have gotten need based grants. if your parents are financially comfortable then they will have to pay and borrow like @aunt bea is doing.

There are several “holes” in what you have posted You also do not seem to understand the difference between a private and a public university.

@TomSrOfBoston : applied to Caltech was rejected, admitted to some schools like Berkeley, brown, cmu but all minimum 40,000. My parents unemployed for past 6 years and we didnt grt the financial aid we deserved despite arguing with the aid office. Problem is we aren’t poor enough to get more aid, but not rich enough to pay ourselves. My dad saved up 50,000 for me but it’s not enough to pay for the American colleges.

Where have I mentioned public vs private I’m talking only about private institutions.